I wrap my arms around her, as much to reassure myself as anything. Ducking my head until her hair tickles my face, I take a long, steadying breath. “We’ll know,” I whisper.
We don’t move from that spot, not even when the ship’s engines kick in. We keep watching as the shattered planet and the remnants of its moon recede into the distance, back and back into the infinite dark. Until our eyes have to strain to see them, until they’re only jagged pinpricks of reflected light.
The hyperspace drive gives its telltale whine, and Lilac leans back into me, bracing as we prepare to jump, to fold space to get home faster. Home to cameras and reporters, and questions from people who’d never understand what happened to us. I haven’t given up on finding answers, not yet, even if we only whisper those answers to each other.
But just now, as we wait for the engines to kick in, all of that is far away. For a moment the image before us is frozen: our world, our lives, reduced to a handful of broken stars half lost in uncharted space. Then it’s gone, the view swallowed by the hyperspace winds streaming past, blue-green auroras wiping the afterimages away.
Until all that’s left is us.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
WE WOULD LIKE TO THANK OUR AMAZING AGENTS, Josh and Tracey Adams, for support, sanity, and SCBs at all the right moments—we’re so grateful we have you on our side! Thank you also to the foreign scouts, agents, and publishers who have helped take our book places we’ve never been.
Thank you to our fantastic editor Abby Ranger for taking on Lilac and Tarver’s story, and teaching, challenging, and supporting us. Abby, it’s truly been our pleasure every step of the way (and thank you to Sylas, for sharing his mom!). Many thanks as well to the wonderful Laura Schreiber for editorial excellence and geeking out with us whenever necessary.
We also want to thank Emily Meehan for asking for us. We’re excited to be with you, and can’t wait to see what’s in store.
Many thanks to the Disney-Hyperion family—from sales, marketing, and publicity, to our copy editors and design team, we’re so grateful to be working with you. Thanks in particular to Suzanne Murphy, Stephanie Lurie, Dina Sherman, Jamie Baker, and Lizzie Mason, Lloyd Ellman, Elke Villa, Martin Karlow, Monica Mayper, and Sarah Chassé. Thank you to Whitney Manger and Tom Corbett for our beautiful cover!
Sarah J. Maas and Susan Dennard—we’re so lucky to have you as friends and critique partners, and we thank you so much for both! Lots of love. Kat Zhang and Olivia Davis, thank you for being right there when we needed you. Thank you to Michelle Dennis for never being tired of reading just one more time, and for boundless (and often tasty) support. You’re irreplaceable.
We’re so grateful to the other amazing people in the writing community who have helped us along the way. Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman, our Story Godmothers—thank you for the push we needed! Jeanne, Corry, and everyone at Odyssey, your support means the world.
Beth Revis, Marie Lu, and Jodi Meadows: thank you for championing our book and being our cheerleaders at all the right moments. You’re awesome.
To our Leading Ladies: Alison Ward, Amanda Ellwood, Ben Brown (though he’s no lady), Dixie McCartney, Kacey Smith, Marri Knadle, and Soraya Een Hajji, thank you for lessons in storytelling we couldn’t have found anywhere else, and treasured friendships.
Thank you to ship’s science officer Ben Ellis and ship’s demolitions expert Nic Crowhurst for helping us crash things and blow them up (all errors are our own), and to ship’s doctor Kate Irving for reading, critique, medical advice, too many bushwalks to count (mostly without survival situations attached), and so many years of extraordinary friendship.
Thank you to our brilliant support networks: the ladies of Pub(lishing) Crawl, the Lucky 13s, the team at FOS, the Roti Boti gang, Jay Kristoff, the TJ/UVA/extended NoVA group, the Plot Bunnies of Melbourne, and the awesome YA writers of Washington, DC. Thank you to our fantastic friends, who never mind when we scribble on napkins, bring our laptops everywhere, or slip out because our co-author just woke up on the other side of the world.
And finally, thank you to our families for their love, enthusiasm, and encouragement. We’re so grateful to you all. In particular, thank you to our parents for unstinting encouragement and filling our lives with books, and Flic and Josie, for being our earliest partners in imagination. Thanks to our extended families—the Cousins clan, the Miskes and our own Mr. Wolf. And last, but not least, thank you, Brendan. It would’ve been a Massive Crash without you.
Don’t miss the next novel in the Starbound Universe:
This Shattered World