Author notes

Chapter 16 - Blood from a Stone

DAJB

on Feb. 14, 2010

I said at the beginning of Shades that the first four chapters more or less wrote themselves. As soon as I began thinking about the story, I knew exactly how those chapters would play out. The second thing to take shape in my mind was the ending, and the last page of this chapter has been so clear to me for so long (over six years now!) that I can hardly believe we're finally ready to show it to you (well, almost!)

The rest of this chapter, however, was a real struggle! As you can tell from the summary above, there's a lot to be resolved in this chapter and I've lost count of the number of times I re-wrote it to make sure that each of the threads came to a head at a time and in a way that kept them in sync.

Oh, and as you'll see, Nickel and Qoiri have done me proud again! I may have choreographed the action here but action sequences are all about the artwork and those guys really pulled out all the stops on this one. Enjoy!