Authors: Cassandra Rose Clarke

Tags: #assassins, #magic, #pirates, #curses, #ships, #high fantasy, #epic fantasy, #fantasy, #deserts, #Romance, #Young Adult, #Adventure

The Pirate's Wish (35 page)

BOOK: The Pirate's Wish

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“I know that now.”

I smiled.

And then he did too.

It didn’t look like a smile at first. It looked like a snarl. One part of his face twisted up and the other twisted down. His teeth gleamed.

But I looked at his eyes, where the brightness was. And everything changed.

For the first time, I understood the difference between leaving and not staying. It was the difference between a snarl and a smile.

“Thank you,” I whispered, and I kissed his scars, those ridges and lines that twisted his face up into something beautiful. I kissed the place where the man from the Mists had cut him. I kissed over the smooth skin of his neck, the soft tangle of his hair, his lips.

When I pulled away, the smile disappeared from everywhere but his eyes.

“We’ll see each other soon,” he said.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I’d like to kick off the wave of thanks with my editor, Amanda Rutter, who first suggested that we split the megabook that was the first draft of
The Assassin’s Curse
into a duology. For this reason I was able to preserve the original story and didn’t have to edit away any of my favorite characters. Amanda also deserves thanks for all her tireless support for both books in the series.

As always, I want to thank my parents and Ross Andrews, for all their love and support. Thanks to Amanda Cole and Bobby Mathews, my friends and beta readers and general writing support system. Indeed, special thanks goes to Amanda for reading the first draft of this book and helping me see its strengths and weaknesses.

Thanks to my agent Stacia Decker as well, for her help with early revisions of the book, as well as all her ceaseless hard work in general. The rest of the Angry Robot crew – Mike Underwood, Lee Harris, Darren Turpin, and Marc Gascoigne – deserve special mention too.
The Assassin’s Curse
. You all helped make the experience of releasing my first novel a overwhelmingly wonderful one, and I sincerely hope that you enjoy
The Pirate’s Wish.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Cassandra Clarke is a speculative fiction writer and occasional teacher living amongst the beige stucco of Houston, Texas. She graduated in 2006 from the University of St Thomas with a bachelor’s degree in English, and in 2008 she completed her master’s degree in creative writing from the University of Texas at Austin. Both of these degrees have served her surprisingly well.

During the summer of 2010, she attended the Clarion West Writers Workshop in Seattle, where she enjoyed sixty-degree summer days. Having been born and raised in Texas, this was something of a big deal. She was also a recipient of the 2010 Susan C Petrey Clarion Scholarship Fund.

Unlike many authors, Cassandra does not have a resume of peculiar careers. She worked at a Barnes and Noble once – that’s about as exciting as it gets. In her spare time she enjoys drawing, painting, crocheting, cooking, and quilting, because she is secretly an old lady. She will see literally any movie as long as it’s in a theatre. She watches television. She doesn’t play many video games though.

cassandraroseclarke.com

twitter.com/mitochondrial

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