Changeling

AUTHORS’ NOTE

Since much of this novel revolves around our system of timekeeping, a brief explanation is in order. Most of us are familiar with the usage AD (anno Domini) and BC (before Christ) to differentiate our modern era from the backwards counting system for dates before the last two thousand years, beginning with the assumed date of the birth of Jesus. Because of the obvious religious connotations and the resulting biases, to say nothing of the fact that these arbitrary designations are not generally believed to be accurate — most Bible scholars believe Jesus was born in the year 2 BC — many historians prefer to use CE (common era) and BCE (before common era). As a scholar, Jade would likely use this latter system, but that would not be true of everyone she comes into contact with, thus the reader will, from time to time, encounter references using the more common system.

Just remember AD=CE and BC=BCE.