Flame (38 page)

“I’d better go,” Kieran said.

“Keep in touch,” Waverly said, and he nodded as his signal winked off, knowing that conversations like this would soon become impossible. And no one would know for another thirty years if the two colonies would be able to stay in contact on any kind of permanent basis. Waverly hoped they would.

After a quiet dinner of roasted vegetables and a lovely egg-and-goat-cheese frittata, and an evening reading aloud to her squirming little boys, Waverly crawled into bed next to her husband. Seth folded her into his embrace and she rested her head in the hollow of his shoulder. She fell asleep almost instantly but was startled awake when he said, “That was our first time apart in nine years.”

“I couldn’t sleep,” she said, nuzzling his neck.

“Me neither.” She thought he was going to let her sleep, but then he asked, “Was it amazing?”

She smiled in the dark and pictured the dappled water reflecting the sunrise, remembered the caress of the breeze on her skin, the dome of endless, eternal blue over her head. “You won’t believe how beautiful.”

“Tell me about it,” he said and gave her a gentle shake to keep her awake.

In the intimate whispers of a long-married pair, she described the water, the air, the sky, the clouds. They stayed up, resisting sleep, talking into the wee hours, glad to be together, glad to finally be going home.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Once again I want to thank the entire team at St. Martin’s, but especially Jennifer Weis, Mollie Traver, and Matthew Shear, who I know fought the good fight for the Sky Chaser books. My agent and friend, Kathleen Anderson, has continued to be a tireless advocate. In addition, I want to thank my friend Victoria Hanley, for her careful reading, and my brother, Michael Ryan, for his wise edits and his absolutely brilliant idea about the oxygen-producing algae.

Also by Amy Kathleen Ryan

Spark

Glow

Zen and Xander Undone

Vibes

About the Author

AMY KATHLEEN RYAN earned an M.A. in English literature at the University of Vermont, and an M.F.A. in creative writing from the New School Creative Writing for Children Program in New York City. She is also the author of two widely acclaimed young adult novels,
Zen and Xander Undone
and
Vibes
. Visit Amy online at
www.amykathleenryan.com
.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

FLAME.
Copyright © 2013 by Amy Kathleen Ryan. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.stmartins.com

Cover design by Ervin Serrano

Cover photographs: woman and background by iStock.com; man and texture by Shutterstock.com

The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

ISBN 978-0-312-62136-0 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-1-250-01417-7 (e-book)

e-ISBN 9781250014177

First Edition: January 2014