Ink. Amanda Sun

      

      I looked down at the paper, still touching the tip of my shoe. I reached for it, flipping the page over to look.

      A girl lay back on a bench, roughly sketched in scrawls of ink.

      A sick feeling started to twist in my stomach, like motion sickness.

      And then the sketched girl turned her head and her inky eyes glared straight into mine.

       Available from Amanda Sun and

      The Paper Gods series (in reading order)

      SHADOW (eBook Prequel Novella)

      INK

      Ink

      The Paper Gods

      Book 1

      Amanda Sun

       www.miraink.co.uk

      For Emily

      ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

      I am so grateful to everyone who put their heart, soul and energy into making Ink a reality. Without all of you, this book would never have become everything I had hoped it to be.

      Mary Sheldon, this book would not exist without you. The passion and conviction with which you live your life and advocate for reading are an inspiration to me. You are a spark of color in this life, a vibrant example of what the world should and can be. I continue to aspire to the faith you place in me, for the world is changed because of you.

      Thank you to my family at MIRA Ink, to Natashya Wilson for believing in Katie and Tomo from the start, to Adam Wilson for my first fan mail, to Giselle Regus for your hard work behind the scenes, to the digital and sales teams and copy editors, and to those who inspire me—Debbie Soares, Amy Jones, Erin Craig and Lisa Wray. Thank you to Gigi Lau for the gorgeous cover, and for taking so much care in breathing life into the book of my heart.

      To my fantastic editor, T.S. Ferguson. TiduS, you have loved my world and characters as your own, and your thoughtful and brilliant advice allowed me to take the story to a level I didn’t know was possible. Your wit and kindness continue to inspire me, and I’m so fortunate to have you as my editor and friend. I look forward to the great things we will accomplish together.

      Thank you to my agent, Melissa Jeglinski, for your advice, confidence and support. I am so grateful to you for your hard work and passion, and for saying what I need to hear when I need to hear it. Thank you for believing in me, and in Ink. Without my family’s support, I could never have reached this point. Thank you, Mum and Dad, for always believing in my writing and in me. Kevin and Emily, thank you for those trips to the park so I could meet my deadlines, and for the long plot discussions you were always willing to have with me. Thank you, Nathan Conquergood, for reading my early novels and doing book reports on them in school, and Bridget Ball, for passing around a petition at school to publish my book. I so appreciate your enthusiasm and faith in my work.

      Thank you, Mio Matsui, for making sure Tomohiro speaks like a real Japanese teen. Thank you, Harumi Sugino and the Hasegawa family, Nobuko, Yoko and all my friends in Japan. Because you opened your arms to me, I can now share that love through Ink.

      Thank you to Caroline Schmeing and Diana Jardine, who read every piece of fan fiction, every full notebook passed under the table in class. To Terry Lim, Clélie Rich and Walter Davies for cheerleading every step of the way. To Alex Neary for my beautiful author photo, and my fellow Lucky 13s for their support. To Nerdfighteria for being a haven where I am understood.

      And finally to my readers. Thank you for sharing this journey with me. Wherever you may go in life—itterasshai.

      1

      I made it halfway across the courtyard before I realized I was still wearing my school slippers. No lie. I had to turn around and slink all the way back to the genkan, the stifled laughs from my classmates trailing me as I mustered what slippered dignity I could.

      God, way to scream foreigner. You’d think after a couple of weeks I’d have the routine down, but no. I’d gone into that mode again, the one where I forgot everything for a minute and walked dazed through the sounds of the Japanese being spoken around me, not fully comprehending that it wasn’t English, that I was on the other side of the world, that Mom was…

      “Katie!”

      I looked up to see Yuki running toward me, breaking from a group of girls who stopped chatting, staring at us. Their stares weren’t unfriendly—they just weren’t exactly subtle. I guess that’s expected when you’re the only Amerika-jin in the school.

      Yuki grabbed my arms with her slender fingers. “You do not want to go in there,” she said in English, motioning at the school entrance behind us.

      “Um, I kind of have to,” I answered in broken Japanese. Forget English, Diane had said. It’s the easiest way to get fluent faster. It’s easier to forget everything, I guess. Forget I ever had any other kind of life.

      Yuki shook her head, so I pointed at my slippered feet. “You still shouldn’t,” she said, this time in Japanese. I liked that about Yuki—she knew I was trying. She didn’t insist on English like some of the other kids. “There’s an ugly breakup going on in the genkan. Really, really awkward.”

      “What am I supposed to do, wait?” I said. “I’ll just be in and out, ten seconds.” I held out my fingers for emphasis.

      “Trust me,” she said, “you don’t want to get in the middle of this.”

      I peeked around her shoulder, but I couldn’t see anything through the glass. I tapped the toe of my slipper on the ground; it felt so flimsy.

      “Some big shot?” I said in English, and Yuki cocked her head to the side. “You know, a daiji na hito or something?” If Yuki was worried, it was probably gossip-worthy.

      She leaned in conspiratorially. “Yuu Tomohiro,” she whispered. In Japan, everyone went by their last names first. “He’s fighting with Myu.”

      “Who?”

      Yuki’s friends giggled behind us. Had they been eavesdropping the whole time?

      “Myu, his girlfriend,” she said.

      “No, I know Myu. The other one,” I said.

      “Yuu Tomohiro?” Yuki said, her arms waving wildly as if that would jog a memory I didn’t have. “Top of the kendo team? They let him get away with almost anything. You don’t want to draw his attention, trust me. He has this cold stare. I dunno…he seems dangerous.”

      “So, what, he’s going to stare me down?”

      Yuki rolled her eyes. “You don’t get it. He’s unpredictable. You don’t want to make enemies with a third year in your first two weeks, do you?”

      I bit my lip, trying to peer through the glass door again. I didn’t need more attention, that’s for sure. I just wanted to blend in, get my homework done and drift through school until Nan and Gramps could take me in. But I also didn’t want to stand in the courtyard in a pair of slippers, stuck for who knows how long. Anyway, it’s not like they could make my life a living hell if I left Japan, and it would all be sorted out soon, right? This wasn’t where Mom intended me to end up. I knew that.

      “I’m going in,” I said.

      “You’re crazy,” Yuki said, but her eyes shone with excitement.

      “They don’t scare me.”

      Yuki