Here it is! I hope you love it.
And thank you to the team at Little, Brown for bending time and space so that I could finish this book the way I wanted and needed to, while still ensuring its timely publication. I’m profoundly grateful for the support. To Alvina Ling for the invaluable editorial feedback and crucial enthusiasm that was like fuel, always just when I needed it. And to Bethany Strout, Lisa Moraleda, Melanie Chang, Faye Bi, Andrew Smith, Victoria Stapleton, Ann Dye, Nellie Kurtzman, Tina McIntyre, Adrian Palacios, Julia Costa, Amy Habayab, Kristin Dulaney, Nina Pombo, JoAnna Kremer, Andy Ball, Christine Ma, Rebecca Westall, Renée Gelman, Tracy Shaw, and Megan Tingley: deepest thanks for creating such an exceptional publishing home.
And since I’m blessed to live in parallel worlds in this regard, to my second, amazing publishing home of Hodder & Stoughton in London: Thank you for always having such big, brilliant ideas, and for believing in me so wholeheartedly. To Kate Howard especially, who crossed an ocean and a continent for Karou, way back in the beginning. You really know how to sweep a writer off her feet! To Jamie Hodder-Williams, Carolyn Mays, Lucy Hale, Katie Wickham, Naomi Berwin, Veronique Norton, Lucy Foley, Fleur Clarke, Catherine Worsley, Claudette Morris, and Linnet Mattey: Thank you!
To Jane Putch, my so-much-more-than-agent: so-much-more-than-thank-you! It’s been a crazy year—a crazy five years, on this trilogy!—and I couldn’t have done it without you. Not even close. Here’s to the past, the present, and the future. Cheers!
And my family. First, to my sister, Dr. Emily Taylor, professor, researcher, and rattlesnake wrangler: Thank you for the science consultations and proofreading. I hope that I got Eliza’s work right in the end! (Astute readers may remember a “young blonde herpetologist” who Karou buys teeth from in Daughter of Smoke & Bone; that was Emily.) To my parents, Patti and Jim Taylor, for everything and more, and to my brother Alex.
Thank you to Tone Almjhell for the heroic last-minute read and sanity check.
And most of all, always, to Jim, who got me writing after I’d kind of given up—or at least had put it on indefinite hold—all those years ago, and who’s been my biggest cheerleader ever since. I’m so lucky. Here’s to three hundred more years!
Lastly, to Clementine, who was born a month before Karou (though Karou gestated longer), and who has known her all her life. Thanks for being a little trooper, always, best kid in the world.
Contents
COVER
TITLE PAGE
DEDICATION
1. NIGHTMARE ICE CREAM
2. THE ARRIVAL
ARRIVAL + 3 HOURS
3. CHOICE OF LIFE SKILLS
4. A BEGINNING
5. GETTING-ACQUAINTED GAME
6. BEAST EXODUS
7. A GIFT FROM THE WILD
8. BRUISE THE SKY
ARRIVAL + 6 HOURS
9. LANDFALL
10. TILT TO PANIC
ARRIVAL + 12 HOURS
11. BREEDS OF SILENCE
12. A WARM IDEA
13. TOGETHER
14. THE LONGEST FIVE MINUTES IN HISTORY
ARRIVAL + 18 HOURS
15. FAMILIAR TERROR
16. WHAT PROMISES ARE WORTH
17. HOPE, DYING UNSURPRISED
18. A CANDLE FLAME EXTINGUISHED BY A SCREAM
19. THE HUNT
20. WARP
21. NITID’S HANDS
22. THE ABYSS’S MAD GAWK
23. THE WHOLE POINT
24. CUE APOCALYPSE
ARRIVAL + 24 HOURS
25. YOU, PLURAL
26. BLEED AND BLOOM
27. JUST CREATURES IN A WORLD
28. ANGEL-LOVER, BEAST-LOVER
29. A DREAM COME TRUE
30. NEARER AND TOUCHING
31. THE OPPOSITE OF SURVIVAL
32. CAKE FOR LATER
ARRIVAL + 36 HOURS
33. LIKE AN ALIEN INVASION
34. THINGS KNOWN AND BURIED
35. THRICE-FALLEN
36. THE ONLY NON-IDIOT ON THE PLANET
37. PREOCCUPIED BY BLISS
38. AN EXCELLENT ACCIDENT OF STARDUST
39. SCION
40. ASSUME THE WORST
41. UNKNOWNS
ARRIVAL + 48 HOURS
42. THE WORST
43. FIRE IN THE SKY
44. THIS JUST IN
45. CATS OUT OF BAGS
46. PIE AND DANDELIONS
47. THE BOOK OF ELAZAEL
48. HUNGRY
49. AN OFFER OF PATRONAGE
50. HAPPINESS HAS TO GO SOMEWHERE
51. ABSCOND
ARRIVAL + 60 HOURS
52. GUNPOWDER AND DECAY
53. EYEBROW MASTER CLASS
54. FAKE GRANDMOTHER
55. LUNATIC POETRY
56. MY SWEET BARBARIAN
57. FED TO THE LIONS
58. THE WRONG UGLINESS
59. SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY
60. NO ONE DIES TODAY
61. SUPERPOWERS WILLY-NILLY
62. THE AGE OF WARS
63. AT THE EDGE OF A KNIFE
64. PERSUASION
65. CHOSEN
66. SO MUCH MORE THAN SAVED
67. A SPRAY OF SPARKS
68. FALLEN
ARRIVAL + 72 HOURS
69. DON’T LET THE SKY-FLAP THINGY HIT YOU ON THE WAY OUT
70. WHITE NO LONGER
71. ABSENCE
72. THE SEVERAL DAYS’ EMPEROR
73. A BUTTERFLY IN A BOTTLE
74. CHAPTER ONE
75. WANT
76. WAITING FOR MAGIC
77. WE HAVEN’T BEEN INTRODUCED
78. (BREATHE)
79. LEGENDS
80. A CHOICE
81. THE WISH POLICE
82. ABERRATION
83. MOST THINGS THAT MATTER
84. THE CATACLYSM
85. AN ENDING
EPILOGUE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
COPYRIGHT
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 by Laini Taylor
Cover photo illustration by Sammy Yuen
Cover photography © Shutterstock
Cover design by Alison Impey
Cover © 2014 Hachette Book Group, Inc.
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
Little, Brown and Company
Hachette Book Group
237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017
lb-teens.com
Little, Brown and Company is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
The Little, Brown name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
First ebook edition: April 2014
ISBN 978-0-316-28016-7
For more about this book and author, visit Bookish.com.
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