Yelena needed a family member to help her revive Tula so I needed to invent a family for her. I created parents, an older sister, a younger sister and a younger brother (gotta have options). Then the question arose—why would Tula be all alone at night?—with two sisters, she didn’t sleep alone. The answer was the family owned a glass factory and had to keep the kilns hot all night—so a member would baby-sit the kilns, shoveling coal when needed. Usually two together, but Opal wasn’t feeling good and Tula sent her to bed. (Note: Opal’s original name was Gale—but my editor suggested I change her name because it was too close to Goel—a major character in Magic Study—I got Opal’s name from the Pickles comic strip).

So Tula’s family was created to back up her reason for being alone. I thought I was done with them. Oh no, they appeared in Fire Study. Completely unplanned—Yelena, Moon Man and Leif were in Booruby and I remembered Tula’s family also lived there and I thought it would be interesting to get them together. First for Yelena to get caught up on the political gossip about this Daviian Clan, but then Opal’s talent revealed itself to Yelena and to me

But why glass? I remember a trip to a glass factory when I was very young. I don’t remember the details, like where or when, but I remember the glass mouse I wanted to buy. It had a long thin tail that swirled up, and my mother said I would break it. I promised not to, and I kept my promise until I moved out of my parent’s house when I was 22 (a box fell off my father’s truck during the move and the tail broke then). I think that trip planted an idea in my mind so when I was writing Fire Study and needed to help Yelena out of a nasty jam, the glass-making interest bubbled to the surface of my mind.