She had only vague memories of her mother--rhyming songs, tickles, a loving face. Her father and the townsfolk said her mother had died trying to bring her a baby brother. Fate had its ways.

Her father, an innkeeper, never remarried. A good man, he was proud of his daughter, and of his work. Over the years he’d painted scenes on the walls of the inn--travelers, idylls and animals--and she learned to make brushes and to mix pigments. She loved her father.

Q - First off, I have to ask - how did you come up with the idea for Nina?! It's such a wonderful concept, which immediately snagged my attention.

It started by reading about Vincent Van Gogh’s life. I’ve always been fascinated by him and his art. Some people believe that he was schizophrenic and I agree. But the more I read about him the more I wondered…or daydreamed, what if he wasn’t crazy? What if his paintings were talking to him?

“They’re just kids,” Donovan said to the Proctor. He spoke only after the door had shut behind them, ensuring that Marshall did not hear him.

“Do you want them to grow up or not?” the Proctor retorted.

Despite knowing that this day would eventually come for all of his students, it still hurt Donovan to know what could happen. To be a teacher is to know that one day your students will learn their lessons and leave.

When the spaceship landed, the President was notified immediately. At first he thought it was a joke, something cooked up by his Chief of Staff to make him look like a fool. The President was convinced that everyone was out to make him look like a fool—the media, the House and Senate, the opposing Party, even his own staff. Sometimes he even suspected the American people had elected him only so they could point and laugh at all his goofs. So he assumed the news of the spaceship must be some kind of prank.

"That's what hocuses are like, and that's why, if you live in the Lower City of Mélusine, you keep one eye on the Mirador all the time, same way you would with a swamp adder. It's just common sense."

Mildmay is a thief, a successful cat-burglar in the city of Mélusine. All his life, he's tried to keep clear of magic and its practitioners, but it seems every job he's come across lately has a hocus behind it.