A word from Demeter Serraffield.

  I am not a lifeguard.

  The sea is deep and stormy and treacherous.

  I was born in that water. I can still feel its hands on me now. I knew nothing but that water, that desperate scrabbling struggle for life against everything. I could not conceive that there was any world apart from the waves, beating and beating against me. It is a miracle that I survived, that I clawed my way out of that water. It is a miracle of my own making, but that makes it no less miraculous.

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  I am safe from that sea, standing on the dry land, but I can see the sea before me, dark and churning.

  If I go too deeply into that water, I will drown.

  I am not a lifeguard.

  I cannot swim out after others who I see floundering in the waves.

  But I can wade out.

  I can wade out, as far as I dare, and hold out my hands to help drag you out of the stormy sea.

  This book is my hands. My words are my hands. Hold fast to them. There is a way out of the sea.