The Legend of the Rift (31 page)

“Uh, okay . . .” Mom said.

“Right,” Dad piped up. “Those digits that repeat themselves. The cycle of sevenths.”

“
B
is the second letter of the alphabet,” I said. “So here—watch. I take those numbers I just wrote down and find the letter of the alphabet that belongs to each number!”

Mom let out a hoot of laughter. “Hoo boy. What an old nerd!”

As Dad hurried us through the front door, a gruff voice called out: “Tickets five dollars!”

Behind a desk sat a very broad man with slicked-back red hair and black glasses, pointing to a price list. “Under fourteen free,” he grunted.

“Torquin?”

I was nearly screaming, and he dropped his pen. “Excuse me?” he said.

“Your name is Torquin!” I blabbered.

He chuckled. “Sorry, dude. Victor. Vic Quiñones. I'm the professor's graduate assistant. Better hurry if you want to get a seat.”

I was laughing so hard I can't believe they didn't throw me out.

Professor Bhegad was pacing the stage, muttering to two assistants. I didn't know what they were talking about—he'd probably forgotten his papers or something, but it made me so happy to see him alive.

As we waited for the lecture to begin, I thought about my friends again. Did Cass and Eloise know each other? Were their parents out of jail? Was Aly in California and Marco in Ohio? Or were they here on the island of Nissi somewhere?

Did they even exist? Had they made it through the rift, or was I the only one?

Bhegad . . . Torquin . . . Randall Cromarty . . . these were too strange to be coincidences. Weren't they?

I thought about the lambda.
No, not a lambda. A flock.
It was still there. Still on my head. Still on Randy's. But Cromarty had lived past fourteen. Karai had said the death curse would be lifted if the Loculi were destroyed, and that was great.

That was amazing. I was going to live!

Still . . . what about the powers? What about
that
part of
G7W—the part that opened up your ceresacrum and made your best talents a superpower. Did we still have that?

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor.

I looked around. The auditorium was filling up, but Bhegad still didn't seem ready. I took out my phone and flipped through my contacts.

A.
Black

M
the M. Ramsay

C.
Williams

E.
Williams

I nearly screamed.

Yes.

All there.

I felt myself grinning at Bhegad. Sending him thoughts.
You told me about time travel. You weren't sure it could be done. You hinted the world would be changed in impossible ways.

But he was still here. And so was I. Mom. Dad. My friends.

Someday, I vowed, I would tell him everything. About the life he never led.

I looked back down at my phone. First I had important business to take care of. If I could remember what had just happened—if I was aware of both worlds, both realities—then I hoped they would, too.

And we would share those memories at four birthdays in the coming year. Four of the happiest birthdays ever in history.

Clicking on Aly's name, I began typing out a text.

I smiled.

I couldn't wait.

W
AIT.
I
T'S OVER?

Already?

Seven Wonders, five books, three years, one very sad writer. I'm going to miss this world. A lot. If you've come this far on the journey with me, I feel you deserve a final word. Because, let's face it, you're my hero.

Yup, you.

Authors don't say this enough: readers are the reason we exist. Well, other things are important too—oxygen and chocolate come to mind—but the truth is, without you the Seven Wonders would stay just the way it started. As an idea. A seed of a story.

You need to know that this seed was picked up, turned over, and grown by some very, very good farmers.

Like the megastar Dave Linker at HarperCollins. As head of the Seven Wonders team, he reads every word of every draft, finds mistakes, makes amazing suggestions, cracks the whip, coordinates with the art and publicity departments, and makes you feel like you're traveling with a brother. He's superarticulate, too, except when he calls to tell you that your book has made the
New York Times
bestseller list. Then he gets so excited he can barely form a coherent sentence.

The deep-down, roll-up-the-sleeves editing was done by a true legend in the publishing business, Eloise Flood. I first worked with her three decades ago and I'm still trying to get it right. Her input has made the characters rich and the plots knotty. Or the other way around. And she has a wicked sense of humor.

All of them answer to Emily Brenner, the world's most supportive and good-natured overlord. And she loves theater, so I love her.

Three mighty eagle-eyed people saved me from eternal embarrassment by poring over every word of every book, picking up all the mistakes the rest of us missed. Because you will never see those bloopers, I raise my talons in gratitude to Jessica Berg, Gweneth Morton, and Martha Schwartz.

I'm pretty bad at art but I know genius when I see it. Torstein Norstrand's cover artwork has knocked me off my seat so many times I believe I've sustained permanent
hip damage. Joe Merkel has translated my impossible requests into interior art that's simply magical, and he's been helped by the supreme talents of Barb Fitzsimmons and Rick Farley.

But the words-and-images people are only a part of it.

If you have a publisher and managing editor like Susan Katz and Kate Jackson, you thank your lucky stars. Their enthusiasm has energized everyone since Day One. Two brilliant publicists, Cindy Hamilton and Lindsey Karl, have sent me to schools, bookstores, festivals, libraries, conferences, and TV studios in nearly forty states and three foreign countries. Marketing mavens Alana Whitman, Matt Schweitzer, Patty Rosati, Molly Motch and Julie Eckstein convinced me to dress up in a toga for my epic Comic Con video, and they continued to develop contests, teaching guides, and crazy Seven Wonders schemes. Alex Garber has manned the website with style and sometimes painful humor, with the subversive help of Colleen O'Connell. And Jeffrey “Scooter” Kaplan and Marissa Benedetto have managed to make great video footage despite a very shiny-faced author.

The task of getting books into your hands is a bit like wizardry. Boots-on-the-ground sales reps go door to door, to libraries and booksellers, while a team of back-office whizzes makes sure there are always copies to go around. Hats off to Andrea Pappenheimer, the Grand Master of this merry band, which includes Kerry Moynagh, Kathy Faber, Susan Yeager, and Heather Doss. A special holler to my brother
from the South, Eric Svenson, who could sell sand to a camel.

An entire department exists to boot authors out of the country, and I kowtow to Austin Tripp, Sarah Woodruff, David Wolfson, Molly Humphrey, Christine Swedowsky, and Samantha Hagerbaumer for sending this wide-eyed boy to the Far East—and to Jean McGinley, Alpha Wong, and Sarah Oughton for spreading the Seven Wonders to other countries' publishers (and book clubs and movie companies).

Once the books leave the house, they take up residence on shelves all over the world. Readers, cherish your bookstores and book sellers. Love your librarians. They are smart, funny, wise, caring. Take advantage. I mean that. They will help you enjoy life and unleash the best inside you. (I wanted to list all the ones I've enjoyed meeting, but the book has a thousand-page limit.)

In the end, the book stops at you. All these people above do their work for that one purpose. So if you're reading this, if you're as sad to see the series end as I am, you're in good company.

Keep it up. Keep reading. Keep thinking. Keep feeling. You will never be sorry.

Okay, I said that you deserved a final word. Here it is. It's very short, but I mean it from the heart.

Thanks.

Peter Lerangis

New York City

Photo by Joseph Lerangis

PETER LERANGIS
is the author of more than one hundred and sixty books, which have sold more than five and half million copies and been translated into thirty-three different languages. These include the first four books in the
New York Times
bestselling Seven Wonders series,
The Colossus Rises, Lost in Babylon, The Tomb of Shadows,
and
The Curse of the King,
and two books in the 39 Clues series. Peter is a Harvard graduate with a degree in biochemistry. He has run a marathon and gone rock climbing during an earthquake—though not on the same day. He lives in New York City with his wife, musician Tina deVaron, and their two sons, Nick and Joe. In his spare time, he likes to eat chocolate.

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