When you wake up, I hope you’ll remember you went willingly. I hope you’ll remember that forever was waiting for you on the other side of the pain. And I’ll be here, with clothes and a glass of blood, and time. So much time. We’re going to have forever, Graham, and no one’s ever going to call either of us a liar again. We’re finally free.

First says that you can hear me now, even if you don’t necessarily know what I’m saying. So I’m making sure you know what matters, and I’m making sure you know that I’m still here. That I will always be here.

Please know that you are loved.

Please know that I am waiting.

Please know that we’re going to have the stars, Graham, we’re going to have the stars. You and me and Mandy and Toni and everyone else who chose or was chosen for conversion, we’re going to have the stars. Earth will have its own ships, green and glorious and growing until they launch themselves from their original garden and sail the skies, joining us in forever. We’re going to see things we’ve never seen before, you and me, and we may not be human, but we’ll think like humans did, we’ll understand what we see like humans did, and through us, humanity will finally see the universe. We’re going to carry them there, in the space beneath our skins.

This was all a story. I can’t wait for you to wake up and finish telling it with me.

I can’t wait.

Also by Seanan McGuire

ALSO BY
SEANAN MCGUIRE

Deadlands: Boneyard

Dusk or Dark or Dawn or Day

Dying With Her Cheer Pants On

Laughter at the Academy

Letters to the Pumpkin King

Overwatch: Declassified: An Official History of Overwatch

The Proper Thing and Other Stories

THE ALCHEMICAL JOURNEYS SERIES

Middlegame

Seasonal Fears

Tidal Creatures

THE WAYWARD CHILDREN SERIES

Every Heart a Doorway

Down Among the Sticks and Bones

Beneath the Sugar Sky

In an Absent Dream

Come Tumbling Down

Across the Green Grass Fields

Where the Drowned Girls Go

Lost in the Moment and Found

Mislaid in Parts Half-Known

Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear

Seanan McGuire’s Wayward Children, Volumes 1–3 (boxed set)

Be Sure: Wayward Children, Books 1–3

THE OCTOBER DAYE SERIES

Rosemary and Rue

A Local Habitation

An Artificial Night

Late Eclipses

One Salt Sea

Ashes of Honor

Chimes at Midnight

The Winter Long

A Red-Rose Chain

Once Broken Faith

The Brightest Fell

Night and Silence

The Unkindest Tide

A Killing Frost

When Sorrows Come

Be the Serpent

Sleep No More

The Innocent Sleep

Silver and Lead

THE INCRYPTID SERIES

Discount Armageddon

Midnight Blue-Light Special

Half-Off Ragnarok

Pocket Apocalypse

Chaos Choreography

Magic for Nothing

Tricks for Free

That Ain’t Witchcraft

Imaginary Numbers

Calculated Risks

Spelunking Through Hell

Backpacking Through Bedlam

Aftermarket Afterlife

Installment Immortality

THE INDEXING SERIES

Indexing