Took it out.
Turned it over in his hands.
Ziko, beside him: "New one."
"Yes."
"First page?"
"Not yet." Duke looked at the empty cover. "I'm deciding what the first page should be."
"What decides the first page?"
Duke thought about it.
"The first page is what everything else in the book builds from," he said. "If you draw the wrong thing first, everything after it is trying to correct the initial premise." He turned the book over again. "You only get one first page."
Ziko was quiet for a moment. "What do you want it to be."
Duke looked at the new book.
He thought about the last seven books. Every first page he'd put in them — the compound gate, the diner, the round table, the training yard, Neva at the counter on the first night.
He thought about what the seventh book's last pag
