This story was written on the lands of the Wampanoag, Narragansett, and Tongva peoples, rightful custodians of that land and of storytelling traditions far older than this book.
None of this would have been possible without my agent, Maria Napolitano. Thank you for your friendship, for your practical advice, for my sourdough starter, and for your unending generosity. Thank you, as well, to everyone at kt literary for welcoming me into the fold.
Next, a massive thank you to my phenomenal editor Navah Wolfe, as well as to Joshua Starr, Laura Fitzgerald, Rachael Small, Madeline Goldberg, and the rest of the team at DAW and Astra Publishing House. To Rebecca Yanovskaya and Adam Auerbach, my endless appreciation for making the jackets look so damn good. I thought this book was done. I was very, very wrong.
Thank you, thank you, thank you to Christina Sweeney-Baird, Lia Ryerson, and Leo Goodyear for beta reading my mess of a second draft long before I had publishing rep. Christina, thank you so much for your sensible Capricorn braying and for getting to wake up to your fantastic voice notes. Lia, thank you for holding my hand through the querying process and for text messages proclaiming your undying love and support. Leo, thank you for your industry advice and for letting me help pick out your first drag fit. It was an honor.
Thank you to Petie Sjogren for asking the best questions. To Stitch for ensuring that both Selah and Tair came to life in the way they deserved. To Erika Lynn-Green, Daniel Packard, and Liv Adams for letting me pick your brains about various gruesome injuries and hypothetical medical emergencies. To Ammy Ontiveros for graciously letting me steal your last name—occupational hazard of being friends with a writer. To Lela Barclay de Tolly for childhood days spent climbing around apothecaries and warehouses and farmstands, and for being my chosen family.
Thank you to the amazing community at Stories Books & Cafe, where most of this was written, and to the folks at Riffraff and the Providence Public Library, sites of many a long editorial fugue state. Please support your local libraries!
To my trio of champions: Miguel Angel Parreno, Bernadette Greaney, and Adam Kantor. You all believed in this project with passionate—and loud, Adam—enthusiasm right from the start. To Kira Mason and Alexis Ames, the most esteemed Cursed Book Club. And a profoundly heartfelt thank you to Ashley Ellis and Lauren Davila.
In no particular order, there are a few other people I have to thank for helping to birth this book into being, whether they’re aware of doing so or not: Sam Blinn, Abdi Yazdi, Kyle Bass, Linda McDonough, Iniki Mariano, Tyler Spicer, Malcolm Ingram, Zora Moynihan, and Flavia Viotti.
At last, my family. A huge thank you to my dad John, who taught me the elements of style and, when I threw them out the window, very generously got over it. To my mom Rachel, who showed me that a life dedicated to passion and art is not only possible but necessary. To Isabel for keeping me grounded and laughing, and to Olivia for your love of stories—and for your love of this one in particular.