This is me and my little sister, Em. I’ve been lucky that we’ve always got on.
Obviously, we’ve annoyed each other, argued and spent decades perfecting the art of affectionate mockery — we’re sisters — but we’ve also always genuinely liked each other.
And that inevitably found its way into The Dawnshield Order.
Evander and Elowen aren’t us. They’re very much their own people. But when I write them, there’s something I understand instinctively: what it’s like to have a sibling who remembers the versions of you that nobody else knows.
Everyone else can see Captain Evander Drake. The Beacon of Dawnshield. The soldier people follow into danger.
Elowen can see all of that too. She also remembers the boy who tripped over their father’s chisel and scarred his shin.
So when Evander comes downstairs looking considerably more respectable after a particularly unpleasant day, she tells him: “Someone has to remind the Beacon of Dawnshield he’s still just my brother.” And then threatens to tell everyone about the chisel.
That’s what I love about writing siblings. They have a whole history together that nobody else can fully access. Childhood disasters, family stories and old jokes. Things that can be communicated with one look because the explanation would take twenty years.
Elowen knows the man Evander has become, but she also remembers every earlier version of him. And he knows the same about her.
There’s another reason she’s particularly special to me, though: Em created Elowen.
On Friday night, just over a year after first giving me the character who became Evander’s little sister, Em sat reading Lantern in the Fog with me until 1:30am, spotting little things I’d missed and helping me polish the book.
She’s also hoping to get into audiobook narration, and I’d love for Lantern in the Fog to be her guinea pig while she learns. It would make things rather wonderfully full circle.
She gave Elowen to the story. Maybe one day she’ll get to give her a voice too.
Although given that Elowen’s particular talent for being hilariously mean to Evander may have been inspired more by my jokes to Em than the other way round, perhaps I should be slightly worried about what she’ll do with the performance!
