Nocturna (A Forgery of Magic #1)(128)

She dashed those thoughts away, exhaled a long, deep breath, and placed her hands over her face. A long moment passed. If she were anyone else, it would’ve looked like she was trying to hide her tears.

“Finn, wha—”

“A moment, Prince!” she snapped, looking through her fingers to watch his reaction. He rolled his eyes but grinned all the same.

Finally, the work done, Finn let her hands drop. Beneath lay a face he’d never seen her wear. The eyes were large and brown with a thick fringe of lashes. There was a dot of a birthmark under the left eye and a thin slash through the right eyebrow, a scar that stopped the hair from growing. The top lip was fuller than the lower and the face was heart-shaped, the forehead wide while the jawline tapered to a soft point of a chin.

Finn watched it dawn on him, watched him realize that this was her face, the one she’d been born with. She’d peeled the magic away and stripped herself of her armor.

She’d let him truly see her.

She tilted her chin up and held his gaze stubbornly, the same way she did anything else. She tried to assess his reaction, daring him to say something stupid. Something that would give her the excuse she needed to go back to cloaking herself in a mask of magic for the rest of her days. But the prince only smiled, his face filling with light.

“Thank you,” he said. Then again. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” she muttered. Another phrase she wasn’t used to, but it felt right when the words were for his ears.

Alfie raised his arms slightly, looking as if he wasn’t sure if he was overstepping his bounds. Finn’s body moved before her mind could signal. She embraced him with such force that he stumbled back before wrapping his arms around her.

In that moment, there was only the two of them and the knowledge that a door between them was about to close and lock, the key lost somewhere in the sea that would soon sweep them apart.

The chimes of the two-faced clock rang out to signal sunset, shattering the moment.

People rushed by as if this day were any other. The sea sloshed and roiled, pulling ships toward the dock just as easily as it carried them worlds away. Finn pulled free of the embrace, turned on her heel, and walked away.

Goodbye seemed too final a word. She refused to say it. He must have felt the same way, because she’d made it only a few strides when she heard his voice again.

“I’ll see you around,” the prince called.

She turned to face him, walking backward.

“No,” she said with a vulpine grin. “You won’t.”

The thief pulled the hood of the vanishing cloak over her head and disappeared.





Acknowledgments


Books are messy things.

I thought I knew this after working as an editorial assistant for two years, but I understand it more clearly now that I’ve written my own book. I know now more than ever that writing is a team sport, and without my team, there would be no book in your hands and nothing but the tangles of a story in my head.

First, I want to thank Hillary Jacobson and Alexandra Machinist. You two are an amazing duo of dream agents, and I can’t believe how lucky I am to have both of you in my corner. You’ve been my champions from day one. This book exists because you two believed in me first.

Thank you to my amazing editor, Kristin Rens, who challenged me to push myself and, most importantly, to trust myself. Writing books is never easy but writing a first novel feels like a singular sort of challenge. I could not have asked for a better editor or a better person to lead me and ask me all the tough questions. Thank you so much for everything, and I can’t wait to write the rest of this series with you.

And thank you to Kelsey Murphy for all your hard work on this book. From one former editorial assistant to another, I truly appreciate all that you do.

I also want to thank the HarperCollins team, from editorial to marketing to sales to production and onward. Thank you for taking my story and turning it into a book.

To Lauren Pires, Ari Romano, and Thalia Ertman, my indestructible high school squad (aka The Fantastic 4). Thank you for supporting me since I was an awkward teenager who shyly admitted I wanted to write books and cheering me on now that I’m a slightly less awkward adult who shrugs and says “Yeah, I write books I guess” when people ask me what I do.

To Taylor Lewis, Codi Guggliuzza, Norine Mckee, Ashley Delaney, Andrew Lim, and Marlena Chertok, my college crew. We met in a creative writing program, but during those years I learned more about friendship and trusting myself than I did writing, and that’s thanks to each of you. A special thank-you to Norine, who read the book first in its earliest draft and told me that it, in fact, only sucked a little. And another thanks to Codi who repeatedly said “Just do it already!” when I was sitting in her apartment, too scared to send my manuscript out to agents.

Thank you, Hannah Milton. You’ve supported me since the day we became roommates at Columbia University and spent our first night in NYC reading each other’s stories while everyone else went barhopping. I couldn’t have done this without you.

A big thanks to Marisa Dinovis, who pushed me to try #DVpit; Kristina Forest, who was always there to listen to me panic about writing; Kate Sullivan, who constantly assured me that I wasn’t a total idiot; and Grace Weatherall, who sent me what I consider my very first piece of fan mail. Your encouragement really changed my life.