The Dickens Mirror (63 page)

That bird was so near she saw one thing more: the impossible color of its eyes and, in one, a burning gold glister.

“Hello, Emma,” she whispers, and then has to swallow a lump. “I’m so glad to see you.”

And, perhaps, this is the start of something new: a first step in another direction. For Emma? For them all? “I don’t care,” she says as she follows the bird that is spiraling up and up and up. It’s so high that if she stuck out her thumb, she’d blot it out completely. An absurd thought:
Wonder what it all looks like from there
.

At that she feels a slight prod, like the poke of a finger, right
above her nose in the center of her forehead. It feels like a suggestion:
Close your eyes
.

Their bloods have mingled; if she reaches deep inside, her mind closes around a faint, dark, icy stain. It is, she thinks, why she remembers and the boys don’t. But this is a first.

Heart thumping, she does what the voice asks. “Do I relax, do I think of some …” Her breath jumps in a sudden quick inhale as a white clear space unfurls in her mind—as if her brain’s fresh, clean parchment upon which nothing has yet been written.

In the next instant, Rima is airborne, wind in her face and over sleek feathers and a powerful body that cleaves and soars through thin air and blue sky. Far below, there are emerald hills and their home and that indigo sea and all that binds her to this life and those she loves, for however long it lasts.

But for a time, Rima lets go of all that and flies: higher and ever higher, heading for the bright coin of the sun above to test the limits of this boundless sky.

EVERY NOVEL IS
an education, but the fun of doing a quasi-historical is you get to travel to fun places and meet interesting people and see terrific sites because, hey, it’s all research. The challenge is knowing what to leave out because there’s the urge to put in every single scrap. After all, I did all this
work
, and for God’s sake, you should appreciate that. (And who knew the Victorians were such potty-mouths? I suppose they got away with it because it all sounds better with an accent.)

In the end, though, novels are stories, not histories, so consider yourselves spared. Therefore, for every bit of history I got right, I take full credit. I also take the blame for anything I got wrong.

Remember, though: this is why it’s called
fiction
, folks.

For making this novel a reality, my deepest thanks go:

To Greg Ferguson and Elizabeth Law: for understanding what this series was all about from the get-go.

To Jennifer Laughran: for making a call that afternoon in April and saying, point-blank,
Nu, kid. It’s time
.

To Jordan Hamessley: for picking up the ball and running with it and challenging me to make this even better.

To Ryan Sullivan: for ruthlessly killing every word that didn’t belong—but, oh, the blood—as well as being the most superb fact-checker I’ve ever known.

To Bonnie Cutler: for catching what everyone else missed.

To Margaret Coffee, Michelle Bayuk, and Alison Weiss: for your unfailing support and good humor and always finding ways to get my work out there where and when it counts.

To the entire Random House sales force: for your continued advocacy and hard work at putting my books in the hands of kids, our readers. They are, in the end, what we’re all about.

To the very kind people of London’s Royal College of Surgeons: for tracking down all the source materials I requested and providing great photographs to boot.

To Dean Wesley Smith: for reminding me to get over myself already because no one book is all that.

To my daughters, Carolyn and Sarah: for listening to me blubber while never once making me feel like
Mom
 …

And, again—always—to David: Without you, I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.