She closed her eyes and put a mental hand on the tight, unyielding thread that led to the Dragon. She’d told Mr Black that she’d bound the Dragon. But what she hadn’t told him was that the Dragon thread remained unresponsive to any of her attempts to pull on it.

Once again, she felt the odd sense of connection, and she realized that somewhere, in some other hidden corner of the world, Isaac was reaching out to the Dragon thread at the same time. She trusted him least of all, of course, but somehow it was comforting, nonetheless.

Bit by bit, she felt herself relax. She had a direction to go in, that was the important thing. Once you had that, getting there was just a matter of hard work.

And then, on the very edge of asleep, she heard the voice of the Dragon. A memory, perhaps, echoing through her mind.

‘Little sister . . .’

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This project started as something of a lark. Most of my writing to date has been in the genre sometimes called ‘doorstop fantasy’, where something isn’t considered a real book unless you could use it to deflect small-arms fire. After finishing one of these efforts, I decided to try and write something a little bit shorter and cleaner. Alice and The Forbidden Library were the result.

As usual, Elisabeth Fracalossi was my reader of first resort, keeping me encouraged and on the right track. Once the first draft was finished, my fearless cadre of beta readers jumped in. My thanks, in no particular order, to Carl Meister, Dan Blandford, Janelle Stanley, Amanda Davis and Prentice Clark.

My agent, Seth Fishman, once again performed his standard set of miracles. It’s begun to seem almost routine, as though I had Gandalf for a frequent dinner guest, so it’s worth reminding myself from time to time what wonders he can accomplish. My thanks as well to the team at the Gernert Company: Will Roberts, Rebecca Gardner and Andy Kifer, and in the UK Caspian Dennis at Abner Stein.

Kathy Dawson, my editor, deserves a double dose of thanks for this one. In addition to an editor’s usual duties, she was faced with an author who didn’t really know what kind of book he’d written, and wouldn’t have known anything about it if he had. She handled it with aplomb, and showed a lot more patience than I would have in her shoes. Thanks for putting up with me.

Finally, as always, my thanks to all the people who don’t get to put their names on the cover but worked hard to make the book shine.

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