A dragon. A scholar. A very short story about death.

Madeleine Cost is working to become the youngest person ever to win the

Archibald Prize for portraiture. Her elusive cousin Tyler is the perfect

subject: androgynous, beautiful, and famous. All she needs to do is pin

him down for the sittings.None of her plans factored in the Spires: featureless, impossible,

spearing into the hearts of cities across the world – and spraying

clouds of sparkling dust into the wind.Is it an alien invasion? Germ warfare? They are questions everyone on

Earth would like answered, but Madeleine has a more immediate problem.

At Ground Zero of the Sydney Spire, beneath the collapsed ruin of St

James Station, she must make it to the surface before she can hope to

find out if the world is ending.

For centuries the Seleighe have kept imprisoned a nameless, monstrous God.

But the seal is failing, and Veresan of the Summer Fire must travel far beyond

his own land to prevent disaster.

What happens when the plot ends? A relentless barrage of weddings, babies, and

planetary colonisation! Meandering through the two years following the

conclusion of the Touchstone Trilogy, this self-indulgent collection of family

reminiscence is more saccharine than dramatic, with the most action to be

found in snowball fights.For those who truly just want to know what happens next, no matter how

mundane, read on for the everyday, ordinary lives of psychic space ninjas

playing house.

One does not simply walk onto another planet. At least not without the help of

a daughter who has developed unlikely powers, fought an intra-dimensional war,

and then arranged for a family relocation to a futuristic clone of Earth.

Laura Devlin would gladly have paid any price to have her daughter back, so

living in a techno-paradise with spaceship views is merely an added bonus. And

a dream come true.But Arcadian paradises do not come without complications. Laura’s include a

plethora of psychic grandchildren. Interplanetary diplomacy. Her daughter’s

immense fame. And KOTIS, the military watchdog that seems to consider Laura’s

entire family government property.Forewarned by her daughter’s experiences, Laura had anticipated as many

problems as she could, and didn’t doubt her ability to cope with the rest. But

she had not planned on Gidds Selkie, a military officer chipped from flint

and not at all the sort of man lifelong geek Laura had ever imagined would

find her interesting.Burned in the past, Laura is surprised to find herself tempted. Is this a new

start to go with a new world? Or a mismatch doomed to failure?

On her last day of high school, Cassandra Devlin walked out of exams and into

a forest. Surrounded by the wrong sort of trees, and animals never featured in

any nature documentary, Cass is only sure of one thing; alone, she will be

lucky to survive.The sprawl of abandoned blockish buildings Cass discovers offers her only more

puzzles. Where are the people? What is the intoxicating mist which drifts off

the buildings in the moonlight? And why does she feel like she’s being

watched?Increasingly unnerved, Cass is overjoyed at the arrival of the formidable

Setari. Whisked to a world as technologically advanced as the first was

primitive, where nanotech computers are grown inside people’s skulls, and few

have any interest in venturing outside the enormous whitestone cities, Cass

finds herself processed as a stray, a refugee displaced by the gates torn

between worlds. Struggling with an unfamiliar language and culture, she must

adapt to virtual classrooms, friends who can teleport, and the ingrained

attitude that strays are backward and slow.Can Cass ever find her way home? And after the people of her new world

discover her unexpected value, will they be willing to let her leave?