I am glad to be alive; at least, I am now. I love my new skin, which has been stretched to fit me. There are glimpses of the old me between the cracks and I sometimes smile when I notice some ink I’ve not spotted before. The mark of the sisters is gone, and I miss them, but I am getting used to being the patchwork girl. Some people say I am an emblem: a picture of the future, of marks that exist and don’t exist all at once. I am tired of being anything but Leora, though, and I tell them so. I have regular appointments to help me get movement and sensation and flexibility back – I will be an inker again. I will.

I met a child in the hospital waiting room yesterday and she asked me whether I was sad about all my scars.

I looked at my arms and saw the puckered edges, the shine of burned skin, the zig-zag mending of grafted skin. I am all scar tissue.

I told the girl that I loved my scars. And I do. My scars tell my story more clearly than any ink. I was broken and now I am whole. But the cracks still show – lightning flashes that say, “You can’t keep me down.”

Because there’s redemption. There is always redemption.

And with redemption comes the freedom to fly.

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

Thank you, Jo Unwin and all at JULA.

Thank you to the brilliant team at Scholastic for making this book happen:

Gen Herr, Lauren Fortune, Andrew Biscomb, Jamie Gregory, Harriet Dunlea, Tanya Harris-Brown, Emily Landy, Pete Matthews, Jessica White, Emma Jobling and Olivia Horrox.

Scholastic has been a wonderful home for this trilogy, and I have been nurtured with such kindness and expertise. Thank you for making my publishing journey so special; I couldn’t have wished for a better place to belong.

Thank you to friends and family for your love, patience and support. I am lucky to have you in my life. Heartfelt thanks to the nurses of Ward 8 at Royal Preston Hospital, where I wrote some of this book, marvelling at how you cared for my kid. Long live the NHS.

Thanks to Jenny Salisbury and Sheila Irvine who each shared their expertise with me. Thanks to Dave Winn at Market Quarter Tattoo: I finally know what it feels like.

Mikey, Dan and Jemima: books are nice, but you three are my true treasures. Your stories are going to be so, so beautiful.

About the Author

ALICE BROADWAY

Alice’s first book, Ink, was one of the bestselling YA debuts of 2017 and was shortlisted for many prizes, including the Books Are My Bag YA category and the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize Older Fiction category.

Alice drinks more tea than is really necessary and loves writing in her yellow camper van.