At last, we have five days more until Summons hits Kindle. You can also buy the genuine article in paperback and hardcover soon.
To mark the occasion, here is the final letter of divinity.
Yonder World
Reader discretion is advised.
From: Janna Kunskapsen
To: Carlyle Demmings
Carl:
I received your intermediary’s email last week–I am uncertain what you wish from me. Olga has made it plain that she is disinclined to receive you. My sister has never fully explained to me the circumstances of your interplay back at university, but it is most clearly a painful one.
Olga rarely speaks her mind on matters of heart; she is forward-looking, driven, and terse. I am none of those things–I love finer things, I speak often, and I fail at most everything. Years of therapy have taught me this. But I am no fool–your interest in me would be a silly attempt to buy from me glimpses into her professional world.
Understand, I do not intend to be cruel. Perhaps your heart was broken during your tryst. Perhaps Olga appeared cold as stone–she often does this, inexplicably so. But I know you are Machiavellian, given to torching others for your own interests. Common people read about your exploits and feel revulsion and envy. You believe you cannot make mistakes, yet those are your forte.
I also know that you stole my sister’s ideas in forming your first company. She would choose to move on from it, being the stoic she is. But I would make no such mistake–once an enemy, always an enemy. You wrote patents with her expertise, then cut her free from it. Should you wish to buy my affections, perhaps you can compensate her, yes?
I suspect you would attempt to manipulate me because of my husband’s desertion and the many bills to pay supporting my two children. But my father made it clear that the devil comes with promises to cure all ails. I am vulnerable because of my relative poverty, but you would use me and my sister, then discard us as you have countless others. You would make Roy Cohn proud. How many have you truly rewarded for their loyalty?
Please, do not contact me again. I wouldn’t agree to your bullshit in this or any yonder world.