“Emmeline.” I smiled, sitting up in bed and picking a piece of flattened popcorn from last night’s movie marathon off my nightshirt. Jenna was already showered and dressed, her curly black hair tucked into a neat bun.

“Are you saying that to be contrary or because you believe it?” she asked.

I rolled my eyes. “That’s something Ainsley would say.”

Together we spent the morning debating the finer points of Orman, forming theories about how the girls would find their way back—if ever—and speculating about book 2.

Back then, we didn’t realize what the Orman Chronicles would become. We couldn’t have known, sitting cross-legged on Jenna’s unmade bed, that the book and its sequel would turn into major best sellers that got translated into more languages than I knew existed. Orman cultivated a fandom that ran like a twisting golden ribbon across oceans and races and religions, surprising critics, but never readers.

Jenna was right: there is nothing in the world a good book can’t cure.

And the Orman Chronicles?

They’re the best kind of good.

chapter one

If my life were a book, I would start here, standing in front of the long row of check-in tables at the California Children’s Book Festival with something that feels very much like hope blooming in my chest.

And if Jenna were the editor of my book—and she totally would be, because she’d want to make sure I got it right—she would disagree. She would say I should start from when we first met, or six days ago, when we graduated from Crescent High to tearful hugs from her parents and distant pats from my mother. But just this once I’ll ignore Jenna’s advice and start here, standing in the middle of the atrium, staring upward at the huge, colorful banner suspended above the check-in.

There are at least a dozen author faces in neat, orderly rows, but it’s the center photo that makes my fingers tingle with excitement. The focal point—the largest photo of them all, and dead center—is N. E. Endsley, with his sharp cheekbones and dark, layered hair that is two steps of sophistication above boy band hair.

It’s a testament to his writing skills that his first book sold so well without the inordinately attractive author photo on the back flap.

“Author of the Orman Chronicles” is all it says beneath his unsmiling photo, but everyone knows the final book is coming. Those of us who paid a prince’s ransom—or whose best friend’s parents paid the ransom as a high school graduation gift—to be in the room for his special announcement are hoping to hear at least a release date and hopefully—squee!—a short excerpt.