Thank you to my agent, Mary, who is always the first to champion my wild ideas and make my dreams come true. What feels like ages ago, I pitched this idea to Mary as an adult fantasy trilogy about an alchemist girl summoned by the Empress herself. I had very few concrete thoughts about it at the time, other than a burning obsession with The Poppy War series and vague aspirations of writing something equally as vast and magical. Mary mentioned offhandedly that if I wanted this to be a YA series, perhaps the Empress’s son could be the one to summon Zilan. I loved that idea, and it ignited an excitement for this book that never dimmed even as I got down into the weeds of revision.
Thank you to Claire, for all your excitement about this story before it was even fully formed. Your faith in me made this the most fun writing experience I’ve ever had, knowing my unwritten story already had so much love and support.
Thank you to the Inkyard Press team for all the ways you’ve supported me and my books these past few years. I was lucky enough to experience so many amazing book events in 2022, which I owe to the endlessly supportive team at Inkyard. Thank you as well to my UK publishing team at Hodderscape, for making another one of my greatest dreams come true!
Enormous thanks to my friend Kin, for naming basically all of my characters. Thank you for patiently answering my ridiculous questions and supporting my efforts to write this book so far beyond my expertise. It can be an isolating experience as an Asian diaspora writer to want so badly to explore your heritage, knowing that you will never be “authentic enough” for some people, so I am extremely lucky to have friends like Kin who help me explore the parts of my culture that have been lost without passing judgment or gatekeeping.
Thank you to Van Hoang and Yume Kitasei, agent sisters and publishing support buddies forever. May our stories only grow weirder and more popular. Thank you as well to all of my agent siblings in Mary’s Squad!
Thank you to Rebecca Kim Wells, my mentor, writing buddy, and dear friend.
Thanks to Jialu, for being my friend and writing buddy, and also the best thing to come out of the hellscape that is Twitter.
Thank you as well to all of my friends outside of publishing who celebrated with me as this journey unfolded and cheered for my successes even when they didn’t know what they meant. Thank you for coming to my book launch events, taking pictures of my books in the wild, and proudly telling your friends that you know an author. Thank you for sneaking into my signing lines, letting me stay with you while traveling for book events, taking me around your cities for book research, and listening to me ramble about my creepy book ideas.
Thank you to my extended family for reading my books just because you love me, even though I know that they gross you out.
And of course, thank you to my parents for supporting all of my dreams, for relentlessly promoting my book to all your friends, and for believing in me.