The final illustration of this novel had to be the dæmon. Words don’t do him justice. I’m not sure an image can. Perhaps one day I’ll set him to music, something deep and resonant that will make the hair on your neck stand up.

The dæmons have no feet or legs, though there might be a tail under there somewhere. They float about on swirling tattered robes, drifting among a cloud of billowing smoke. They are inspired mostly from the djinn described in the Thousand Nights and a Night, and the many wonderful illustrations of them through the years. The Dæmon King has a helmet, or perhaps just his own head, covered in horns and knobs, made to resemble several dinosaur accoutrements, from ceratopians to pachycephalosaurs. His eyes glow white and his skin is actually quite pale as well, not black as you might imagine. In my mind he is a cross between a deafening thunderstorm, with tornados, and one of those strange deep-sea fish that seem to wriggle right out of our nightmares.