First, I’d like to thank my dearest love, Mike, who continues to be my foundation, my rubber duck, and my first defense against plot holes. Thanks as ever to Karen Faris, for always making the time to give me feedback. Eternal thanks to my agent, Sam Morgan (you didn’t have to answer those panicked Saturday-night phone calls, but thank you for doing it, anyway). I also want to thank the extraordinary people at Tor Books—not just my fantastic editors, Devi Pillai and Bella Pagan (and their assistants, Rachel Bass and Georgia Summers!), but the entire cast of often unsung heroes in editing, production, marketing, and publicity whose hard work and enthusiasm helped make this book possible. My readers may not know about you, but please believe that I do (and will be sending you more fudge). Thank you to Lars Grant-West for his fantastic cover art, Irene Gallo for her perfect art direction, and Thomas Mis for his hard work making the audiobooks extraordinary. I’d also like to thank Rachel Fish for her advice in grappling with the often-complicated gender issues of Jorat. And lastly, thank you to DeBracey Productions at the Georgia Renaissance Festival for letting me hang out and ask annoying questions. Special thanks to the surprisingly nice tournament villain, Lee Kirk, and to Dosbergen “Dopka” Kozugulov, whose discussions of the horse games of his native Kyrgyzstan neatly upended all my plans for how Joratese tournaments worked.