When asked to write the second book of Olympus Bound in less than a year, I almost had a heart attack. Only through the support of so many wonderful friends and colleagues did I manage what was, to an inveterate procrastinator, a feat of Herculean proportions.
Helen Shaw, the great friend to whom this book is dedicated, first introduced me to Mithraism, and her ideas continued to shape the book until the very last draft. There is no authorial conundrum too great or too small that she can’t solve it on a thirty-minute train ride from Westchester. Tegan Tigani, my role model for selflessness and dedication for the past thirty years, provided not only invaluable feedback but also much-needed enthusiasm throughout the process. Sharing my writing with her is one of the giddiest joys of my life. John Wray and Madeleine Osborn both scoured every line, sharing their advice and ideas with unstinting generosity. The brilliant Chad Mills contributed his keen eye to proofreading.
Perennial thanks to Devi Pillai at Orbit for her excellent editorial insights and for shepherding the entire Olympus Bound series forward with such care. To everyone else at Orbit, including Lindsey Hall, Kelly O’Connor, Ellen Wright, Kirk Benshoff, Alex Lencicki, Andy Swist, Anne Clarke, and Tim Holman, thanks as always for your talent, humor, and hard work. I owe a special debt to Tommy Harron for trusting me with the audiobook and making its recording such an unalloyed pleasure.
My career as a novelist would not be possible without the faith of my agent, Jennifer Joel, who has stuck with me for more years than I care to admit. She has my undying gratitude.
Dr. Anne Shaw and Dr. Michael Shaw once more graciously provided invaluable help with Greek and Latin usage throughout the book. Mike Shaver of the National Park Service confirmed that, yes, the nineteenth-century cannon on Governors Island could hit the Statue of Liberty (or Washington Square Park, for that matter). Eliot Schrefer and Eric Zahler kindly checked over Philippe’s French, and Matthew Anderson helped out with the more prurient Latin. Any errors in the book are fully of my own making, not theirs. A heartfelt thank-you to Yvonne Rathbone, who allowed me to excerpt her beautiful translation of Callimachus’s Hymn to Artemis.
To my friends and family, who put up with a year’s worth of authorial obsession, thank you for your patience and support. Venturing into this new world was only possible because I had the Brodskys, the Millses, Jac, Jake, Emily, Ben, Dusty, and Jim at my back. If this book gives you even the smallest fraction of the enjoyment that you have brought to my life over the years, I will consider it a success.
And to Jason Mills, my husband, who read the entire manuscript more times than any one man should have to bear (never failing to offer both advice and admiration at just the right time), who scoured the museums of Rome with his camera in tow, who carried me over mountains both literal and figurative, and who patiently sweated through every mithraeum in Ostia Antica: Thank you. Yours is the song stitched across my heart.