The Girl King (The Girl King #1)(128)

He awoke drowning. A gasp like a scream tore out of him as he broke the surface of the water. Air, Nok thought, sucking it in, greedy. Air.

So caught up in the animal joy of merely breathing, it took him a moment to realize he was alone in open water. He cast about for the shore, but there was none to see. Fear lanced through him then, cold. His muscles were aching—for how much longer could he hope to tread?

I’m going to die, he realized.

Something prickled his scalp—a half memory.

Am I dead?

No. Not dead yet. Focus.

He could make out a lumpy shadow far off on the horizon. Land. A strip of it beneath the bright blue sky. Blue. No longer was he in the Inbetween. This was the earth, and he, like any other earthly thing, was alive.

So he swam. Until his hands felt as cold and heavy as stone, until the muscles in his shoulders spasmed and seized, he swam. Past weakness, then the end of weakness, then the point where his body felt consumed by pain, and then was pain, and then the blazing absence, the nothing that followed.

Still he swam, until his hands were paddling against stone.

He threw himself upon the shore, choking and sputtering water from his belly and his lungs. Every part of him ached—cramps seized his calves, his guts, his hands. As the feeling returned to his cold-numbed fingers, it felt like his flesh was afire. Violently, viscerally alive.

He’d never known anything sweeter.





ACKNOWLEDGMENTS


Any creative work requires the wisdom, cooperation, and labor of unseen dozens to make its way into the world, and the romantic myth of the individual artist executing a finished work on her own is just that—a myth. Nothing makes this more apparent than publishing a book. Experiencing The Girl King’s long journey from start to your hands, reader, made me wonder why we elevate the myth at all; the reality is far more magical.

To that end, I would like to thank the following people from the bottom of my heart. Their work and support is woven through every page, in every serif, in every neatly patched plot-hole, every correctly placed comma, and I am humbled by their contributions.

I am eternally grateful to my all-star agent, Beth Phelan, for taking a chance on me and The Girl King. This would never have happened without you. Thank you for your savviness, persistence, boldness, and the speed with which you reply to emails—in short, thanks for possessing all the qualities I wish I had. Thank you also for your patience; wry humor; early editorial acuity; kindness; and your fondness for dogs, which is equaled perhaps only by my fondness for cats, and thus makes me feel better about being a pet weirdo.

Thank you to my deeply insightful and casually brilliant editor, Hali Baumstein. I kind of knew you were the one for this project when you didn’t flinch at my wildest, most incendiary plans for this series, and I definitely knew you were the one when you dropped a Taylor Swift reference in my first edit letter. I can’t imagine having done The Girl King with anyone else, and I’m so excited to crack open book two together.

My gratitude is also owed to the whole amazing team at Bloomsbury for their kind support; I feel very lucky and honored to publish my debut with such a special and talented group. Thank you to Cindy Loh, Sarah Shumway, Diane Aronson, Melissa Kavonic, Donna Mark, Cristina Gilbert, Lily Yengle, Beth Eller, Brittany Mitchell, and Alona Fryman. Special thanks to Lizzy Mason and Anna Bernard in publicity, Erica Barmash and Emily Ritter in marketing, Cindy (again), and everyone who made my first BEA experience a terrific one.

Many thanks to copy editor Juliann Barbato and proofreader Linda Minton, who continually amazed me with their breadth of knowledge and attention to detail. I still don’t really understand where commas go, but you both definitely do, so I can sleep at night.

Thank you to illustrator Tommy Arnold for bringing Lu to life through his beautiful cover and to Danielle Ceccolini for her lovely, complementary design. Thank you also to (supremely talented artist) Alexis Castellanos for designing the ARC.

Special thanks also to my UK and Australia/New Zealand editor Rachel Winterbottom for her invaluable input in shaping The Girl King. Thank you to the whole team at Gollancz for their work bringing Lu, Min, and Nok across the pond(s), in particular Alex Layt, Jennifer McMenemy, Paul Stark, Paul Hussey, Jo Carpenter, Kat Lynch, and Brendan Durkin.

Thank you to the Bent Agency for their work in getting The Girl King out into the world. Special thanks to Molly Ker Hawn for her work in facilitating its publication in the UK and Australia/New Zealand. Thank you to the team at the Gallt & Zacker Literary Agency for their support, and to film agent Mary Pender Coplan at UTA.

Thank you to teacher and mentor Marjorie Liu and the incredible writers of the VONA Popular Fiction classes of 2014 and 2015. Already several amazing books and short stories have emerged from our cohort, and I fully expect more to follow. Marjorie, thank you for your quiet warmth and your insight and for challenging us to dream and create big.

Thank you to all the wonderful writers and artists I’ve had the opportunity to meet either in the flesh or virtually while getting this book out into the world. I will always treasure your advice and kindness, and I hope I have the opportunity to pay them forward. Special thanks to my blurbers Cindy Pon, kendare Blake, Heidi Heilig, Marjorie (again), and Julie C. Dao and also to my brilliant, funny agent siblings of the #beoples group on Slack.

I owe an unpayable debt of gratitude to all the YA writers of color who have come before me. Without their hard work and vision, The Girl King would never have made it onto the page, let alone a bookstore shelf.