A big thank-you to the production team at Del Rey, led by editor Tricia Narwani, who trusted me to write this novel as well as other books. Also a big thank-you to my agency and my longtime agent, Eddie Schneider. Thanks as usual to my family and to my first reader, my husband.
For this novel, I utilized modern Mayan Yucatec spelling rather than nineteenth-century Mayan spelling. Although the spelling is intended to be as accurate as possible, Ya’ax Áaktun (green grotto) is rendered as Yaxaktun, in an attempt to reflect a plausible colonial transliteration. Thanks to David Bowles who revised my Mayan vocabulary.