Ivory and Bone(84)

This kiss is different from our first. Mya’s lips are warm and urgent, sending heat like white light through the very core of me, chasing away all my darkness.

Slowly, we stretch out our bodies, easing onto the ground. I pull her close to my chest, encircling her in my arms. At first she doesn’t move, but then silent sobs come, her damp, hot face buried against my neck. When her body finally stills, I kiss her again—the slowest kiss I can stand.

I pull back and look into her eyes. The sun forms a tiny fire in each, a signal fire, a light far away, but bright enough to guide me into the future.

I cannot go into the past. I cannot stop change. Change is coming. But lying here beside Mya, I realize, for the first time since we carried Lo’s lifeless body down the cliff, that the future may hold some good.

My eyes drop to the pendant around Mya’s neck, the pendant of ivory, the twin to the pendant of bone still wrapped around Lo’s neck in her grave.

Absently, my finger touches the flat disk at the center, carved with the image of two mammoth tusks. “You fixed it,” I say. “I found pieces of it scattered at the foot of the trail where you and Lo—”

“This was my mother’s,” Mya says. “Hers was ivory; mine was bone. When we moved—when she died—hers became mine.”

This simple story indicts me. I unfairly judged Mya, assuming she wanted ivory since Lo had a pendant of bone.

“It hurt me to do it, but I broke it on purpose and left it there. It was a clue for you. I knew you would find it, and you would know where to look for me.”

“You knew—” I pull my hand back, tucking it under my head so I can steady my gaze. “How did you know I would look for you?”

“Because . . .” She rolls onto her back and her eyes fall shut. “Because I trust you.”

I trust you. A breeze stirs the leaves above our heads, and cut-out shapes of light and shadow move across us like ripples on water. I trust you. . . . The words echo, fade, and return to echo again through my mind. Since the morning of that first hunt, I have longed to hear those words.

Mya kisses me again, and her hand slides up under my tunic and glides over my chest. Her skin is warm. The sun disappears behind a cloud, and shade encloses us like the walls of a hut.

“Mya.”

Her other hand finds my wrist. She guides my hand up under the hem of her own parka until it’s resting against the warm skin of her back.

She kisses me again, and half sighs, half whispers my name. “Kol.”

That’s when I know. I know we will survive. I know that we will move and there will be fierce, hard, startling changes.

I will feel lost.

But I won’t be lost. We will be together. And together, we’ll find ourselves again.

I let both hands glide across the soft skin of Mya’s back, and I know. I know. Wherever Mya is—a cave or a hut or a boat out on the sea—wherever she is, I’ll be with her, and I’ll be home.





ACKNOWLEDGMENTS


The characters and events of Ivory and Bone would still be stuck in my head and heart if it weren’t for the efforts of so many wonderful people who helped bring them to life on these pages.

I want to thank Alexandra Cooper, who understood this story from the beginning. I owe you so much for shining the light of your editorial talents on an early version of this manuscript, and helping me see the better book within it. Thank you for asking all the right questions, and for working alongside me as we uncovered the essence of Kol’s story. Your input has been invaluable.

Of course, Alexandra would never have read this book if Josh Adams had not read it first. Josh, I am quite sure that no other literary agent could have done what you did for this book and for me as an author. I cannot thank you enough for sharing the power of your vision. You have set me and my stories on the best possible path, and I am so fortunate to have benefited from your talents.

Along with Alexandra Cooper and Josh Adams, I want to thank all the people who worked with them to bring this book into the world. At HarperCollins: thank you to Rosemary Brosnan, Alyssa Miele, Erin Fitzsimmons, Jessica Berg, Olivia Russo, Patty Rosati, and Kim VandeWater. At Adams Literary: thank you to Tracey Adams and Samantha Bagood. To everyone else whose work has contributed to this book, thank you. I am indebted to each of you for your enthusiasm and efforts. Thanks also to Sean Freeman for your contributions to my beautiful cover.

So many other writers have helped me along the way, but I must thank Amie Kaufman first among them. It would take twenty pages to properly acknowledge the difference your help and friendship have made in my life. Thank you for your constant encouragement, for taking the time to read, and for sharing your talent with me at the time I needed it most.

Kat Zhang, you have been with me almost from the beginning of my writing journey. You are so talented and supportive, and I am so proud to call you my friend. Thank you for reading and giving me your thoughts, and for the text messages, progress check-ins, and emails that assured me I was not toiling alone. I couldn’t have made it through without you.

Thank you, of course, to all the Pub(lishing) Crawl contributors and readers. Your enthusiasm is simply more than I could ever have expected or imagined, and it has made a huge difference in my life.

Thank you to all the scientists whose research and writing fed my imagination, and helped me understand the world of my characters and the lives they lived.