by Traci Chee
Aljan had suggested she bring it to the Citadel of the Historians and use it to teach.
In the past, the Book had caused so much grief, so much bloodshed. If the world knew where to find it, would they want it for the things it could teach them about history and magic and power?
Sea spray flecked the cover, dotting the leather with water marks.
It was so vulnerable.
To fire.
To the damp.
To the passage of time.
And to theft.
It would be easy to destroy it. To fling it into the waves and let the water leach the ink from its pages. To set it on a pyre of blackrock and let the flames consume every last letter. To protect the world from its contents in a way the Guard had never been brave enough to do.
As she stared at the Book, she felt Archer’s presence, almost as if he were curled around her, in the branches of the bowsprit. She closed her eyes as tears dampened her lashes. She should have felt grateful that he was there at all, and she felt guilty for wanting more. For wanting him back. For wanting him to not be dead.
But he was gone.
And she was still here.
And she had a decision to make.
When she opened her eyes again, she could see her choices before her in the Illuminated world, almost as if they were paths alight with gold, from which there would be no turning back.
Keep it. Share it. Destroy it.
Tracing the on the cover, Sefia took a deep breath. She knew what she had to do.
One Day
What comes after the end of a book?
Hope.
And possibility.
For thousands of years, the people of Kelanna were beholden to destiny, all their births and deaths and loves and failures spelled out, indelibly, in fine black ink. For thousands of years, I knew every parting, every period, every ending.
But thanks to Sefia and Archer, all the endings have finally come and gone, and now, for the first time in my existence, I’m looking forward into the empty expanse of paper ahead, not knowing what happens next.
It’s exciting, isn’t it? The not-knowing?
For the new world is a blank page—the word, still to be written—and the people of Kelanna are going to fill it with millions of stories.
Stories of their own making.
Stories with less suffering and more joy.
Stories that end happily, or don’t end at all.
I’ve been here since the beginning, and I’ll be here beyond the end, collecting tales from this wonderful and terrible world of water and ships and magic and ghosts.
And if you’d like to hear another story, I’ll have so many to tell you . . . one day.
Acknowledgments
What comes after the end of a book?
Gratitude.
Sefia, Archer, and Reed have been in my head since 2008. Now, ten years, a bajillion drafts, and three books later, their story exists in the world. What a gift that is! What a gift to be here—after the struggle and the doubt and the tears and the soaring moments of joy—with all the people who have come together to bring this series to life. I am so honored and so grateful to have taken this journey with you.
Thank you to Barbara Poelle, agent-warrior extraordinaire, for your enthusiasm, your advocacy, and your ferocity. You told me in our very first conversation that you go to work every Monday with joy in your heart because you “get to do books!” Thank you for doing books with me. It has been a true joy. Many additional thanks to Maggie Kane and the team at I.G.L.A.—I am still so grateful to be one of your authors.
Thank you to Stacey Barney, my inimitable editor, for all the things you do, both on the page and behind the scenes. You challenge me. You support me. You make me a better writer. Working with you these past three years has been both a pleasure and a privilege—thank you from the bottom of my heart for every second of it.
To Cindy Howle and Chandra Wohleber, who have combed through these books so many times with such thoroughness, I am grateful for all of your questions regarding the number of ships, the colors of each flag, the optimum usage of every comma and pronoun. Thank you for making sure I didn’t fall from the high-wire act of writing a trilogy.
For making the dream of these books into a reality, I have so much awe and gratitude for Cecilia Yung, Marikka Tamura, and David Kopka. Your design work has brought the story to life in ways I never could have imagined, from every fingerprint and bookmark to every faded sentence and hidden message. Thank you for giving so much of your talent and your time.
To Deborah Kaplan, Kristin Smith, and Yohey Horishita, thank you for your vision. I could never have imagined how incredible these books could look on a shelf. They are gorgeous and eye-catching and perfect, and now they are complete!
Thank you to everyone on the preposterously excellent team at Putnam and Penguin: Jen Loja, Jen Klonsky, David Briggs, Emily Rodriguez, Elizabeth Lunn, Wendy Pitts, Carmela Iaria, Alexis Watts, Venessa Carson, Rachel Wease, Bri Lockhart, Kara Brammer, Felicity Vallence, Elora Sullivan, Christina Colangelo, Caitlin Whalen, Courtney Gilfillian, Marisa Russell, and the rest of the good people who have made the Penguin family such a welcoming place these past three years. My additional gratitude to the hardworking team at Listening Library and PRH Audio for telling this story the way they’d tell it in Kelanna.
Thank you to Heather Baror-Shapiro for taking The Reader, The Speaker, and The Storyteller to so many new places, and thank you to my foreign publishers for bringing this series to so many new readers.
Thank you to my critique partners and readers, without whom this book never would have made it off the ground. To Emily Skrutskie and Jessica Cluess, thank you for helping me whip the first act into shape. One day, I’ll figure out how to get a plot moving on my own, but until then, I am grateful for your expertise. To Christian McKay Heidicker and Parker Peevyhouse, thank you for helping me work through all sorts of mind-bending meta-level acrobatics and off-the-wall ideas about narrators and blacked-out pages. I couldn’t have made it through the twistiest parts of this labyrinth without you. Thanks also to Ben “Books” Schwartz, Mark O’Brien, Mey Valdivia Rude, and K. A. Reynolds for coming through in the clutch with your incredible speed and insight! I feel honored to keep learning from all of you.
More thanks than I can possibly express to my friends and family. Thank you to Tara Sim, who’s been on this journey with me since Pitch Wars. Maybe I almost killed you with cashews one time, but you’re my dear friend and one day I’ll prove it to you by staring deep into your eyes for an uncomfortably long minute. Thank you to Meg RK for caring about the Easter eggs even more than I do. You’re a dream reader, and you remind me to believe in myself. Thank you to Kerri Maniscalco for sharing your wisdom and your experiences and your laughter (and really good takeout!). I treasure your friendship and can’t wait to share many more stories and food adventures with you. Thank you to Mom, Auntie Kats, and my Bay Area and hometown communities. You nurture my creativity. You encourage my dreams. You inspire me with your own accomplishments, your work ethic, your kindness, your selflessness. Thank you all so much for your love and support. To Cole, thank you for your cooking, your fight choreography, your vacuuming, your incomparable talents at finding plot holes, and most of all, for your love.
Finally—ultimately—my undying thanks to you, dear reader, for following me here, to the end. Thank you for shouting about these books on the internet, for handselling them, for gifting them to your friends and family, for checking them out at the library, for showing up to events and creating fan art and loving this series, these characters, this world as much as I do. Thank you, thank you, thank you a thousand times for sharing this with me.
About the Author
Traci Chee is an all-around word geek, she loves book arts and art books, poetry and paper crafts. She studied literature and creative writing at
the University of California, Santa Cruz, and earned a master of arts degree from San Francisco State University. Traci grew up in a small town with more cows than people, and now feels most at home in the mountains, scaling switchbacks and happening upon hidden highland lakes. She lives in California with her fast-fast dog. The Storyteller is the final book in the Sea of Ink and Gold trilogy that began with the New York Times bestseller, The Reader.
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