Ginanaakomininim, many thanks to you folks, the readers who put up with various drafts of this novel and really helped to make it much better, namely Ayat Mneina, Lisa, David Robertson, Waubgeshig Rice, Xiran Jay Zhao, Nahanni Fontaine, Sylvia Davis, Emily Coutts, Mark Rosner, and Tasha Spillett.

Many thanks as well to Lynne Missen and Peter Phillips, who offered so many great notes, thoughtful suggestions, and ideas in conversation as we edited this. Thank you Linda Pruessen as well for your careful eye and helpful suggestions in the copyedit, and to Sarah Howden for the proofread. My deepest gratitude to my great literary agent Jackie Kaiser for paving the way for me to publish this book, and to Michael Levine and everyone at Westwood Creative Artists for your assistance along the way. Thanks also to Jack Leslie for giving me the opportunity to straighten my thoughts out about the story and themes of this novel. Thanks to Jay Soule for the beautiful cover art.

Gichi-miigwech to the late Gregory Younging for writing Elements of Indigenous Style, whose principles we tried to observe in the crafting of this book. Miigwech to Niigaan Sinclair and again to Tasha Spillett for some of the follow-up discussions on those points. Mársi cho to T’áncháy Redvers for the amazing help in compiling the culturally safe resources for youth and for all you’ve done to lead in that space. And of course to Senator Murray Sinclair for everything you’ve done to show the way and for providing the wisdom quoted in the epigraph. I would also like to thank Mehmet Tohti for the important work you do with the Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project.

Many thanks also to all the great people I’ve worked with in the book world to date for helping bring this opportunity about, including Nicole Winstanley, Diane Turbide, Stephen Myers, Evan Munday, Patrick Crean, Tara Mora, Erin Balser, Ann Jansen, Shelagh Rogers, and the Canada Reads panelists and authors, among many others.

To the students at Pelican Falls, as I wrote in the dedication, I first started thinking about this book when I met some of you a few years back and noticed many of you reading YA novels. The young women at Pelican seemed to be reading a lot in particular. I wanted to put something together that you could see yourselves in but also imagine yourselves as becoming more than, if that makes sense. The world is a wonderful place, your communities are powerful, and you can hold your head high with pride in any world you choose to walk in. I hope this book helps you on your journeys as you seek your dreams.

To everyone else—all of us who wonder, worry, or otherwise dream of how things might be if we were a little more perfect—I hope this book helps somehow. Life is awesome and I hope we all live it to the fullest.