Because what was I supposed to do, talk about work?
What we did at soundstage 13 didn’t take long to ricochet through the Arcadia Project. New York panicked and refused to let go of Belinda’s skirts, so the official story was that the New Orleans office had gone rogue and taken Los Angeles with it. Officially we were just a little two-city hiccup in the chain of command that London would attend to when it had the time. But the fey Courts were divided in half now, with half of each Court in our corner, and New York was already playing footsie with us under the table.
Once the United States stood together, and once we teamed up with the DHS to start gently breaking the American public into the idea that there was More Out There than had been dreamt of, we knew for pretty damned sure that every other nation in the world was going to have a choice to make.
Belinda thought all she had to do was cut us off and we’d wither, but London wasn’t the only city with deep pockets, and we’d taken one of the richest. Valiant Studios alone was going to make us a mint. And if Arcadia’s old guard thought the new king of the Seelie Court would quietly submit the way he had when he was a servant, they were in for a huge surprise on that side of the border, too.
I’d gone into this thing hoping to put down a revolution, and somewhere along the way I’d ended up starting a whole new one. But that was all right. I’d spent most of my life fighting; at least now I was trying to tear down something other than myself. And this time, everyone who mattered was fighting right there with me.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
So many people deserve thanks, but I’d like to focus on the ones who didn’t get mentioned at the end of Borderline.
My first readers for this book: Tori, Brandy Jensen, Charlie Byrd, Stephanie Gunn, and Kristie Matheson. The first four deserve extra credit for reading an unfinished version of the novel—I had not yet written the ending. Talk about a long cliffhanger.
I also owe gratitude to my second round of readers. Autumn Ashbough is responsible for anything I got right about working as an assistant in the entertainment industry, Nicole Lee helped me arrive at a compromise between what a teenager from Hong Kong would really sound like and what would work for an American ear, and Sarah Gailey helped me tune up everything overall (her commentary may have been more entertaining than the actual story).
Thanks to Victor at the Borders in Torrance all those years ago. I still have the angel bear; my daughters take turns sleeping with it. If this book has somehow found its way into your hands, you know why I’m thanking you. Also, write me a letter sometime and let me know how you are.
Gratitude as always to my agent, Russell Galen, who still leaves me a little awestruck, and to Navah Wolfe, who gets this book’s dedication not only for her superb editing but for the radiant kindness and strength of her spirit.
Last but not least: thanks, crows, for creeping me out. It was more than five years ago, seeing a flock of you in a gloomy October sky, that made me decide I’d make the next one a ghost story.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Author photograph by Vanie Poyey
MISHELL BAKER is the author of Borderline, the first book in the Arcadia Project series. She is a 2009 graduate of the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’ Workshop, and her short stories have appeared in Daily Science Fiction, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Redstone Science Fiction, and Electric Velocipede. She has a website at mishellbaker.com and frequently tweets about writing, parenthood, mental health, and assorted geekery at @mishellbaker. When she’s not attending conventions or going on wild research adventures, she lives with her husband and children in Los Angeles.
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2017 by Mishell Baker
Jacket photograph of woman copyright © 2017 by Jill Watcher
Jacket stock photography copyright © 2017 by Thinkstock
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The text for this book was set in Chapparal Pro.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Baker, Mishell, author. Title: Phantom pains / Mishell Baker. Description: First Edition. | New York : Saga Press, [2017] | Series: Arcadia project ; 2 Identifiers: LCCN 2016020852 | ISBN 9781481451925 (trade pbk.) | ISBN 9781481480178 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781481451932 (eBook) Classification: LCC PS3602.A58665 P48 2017 | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016020852
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