The Mark of the Dragonfly (33 page)

“What?” Piper’s mind snapped into focus as dread washed over her. She sat up and grabbed Jeyne’s arms, fingers closing tightly around the metal one. “What do you mean ‘gone’? Where did she go?”

“She’s not on the train. Get up; we’ve got to hurry.”

Doloman—oh goddess, no!
Piper sprang from the bed, yanked on her clothes, and grabbed her boots. Sore muscles screaming in protest, she half ran, half limped after Jeyne out of the car and up to the engine cab. Trimble and Gee were already there. They still looked tired, but Piper noticed Gee had removed his bandages just as he’d promised. He stood by the window, a bundle of barely contained energy. His expression was furious.

“I put a guard at her door,” Gee said to Jeyne when she and Piper walked in. “He says he didn’t see or hear
anything. I’ll have him packed up and off the train before we get to the capital.”

“You don’t get a say in that, Green-Eye,” Jeyne said firmly. She laid a hand on his arm. “He was doing his job, trying to protect her. How was he supposed to know she’d try to slip away?”

“Wait—you mean she ran off?” Piper was stunned. “I thought … But surely Doloman took her. It had to be him!”

“It wasn’t,” Trimble said. “She must have gotten off the train at our last stop.” He handed Piper a folded piece of paper. Piper took it, unfolded it, and stared at the page blankly for a moment. It looked like Anna had torn the paper from one of her encyclopedias. She’d scrawled a note in the margin. She must have been in an awful hurry. Piper could barely read the handwriting, but she recognized that it was addressed to her.

For a long time, Piper didn’t say anything. She was aware of Gee and the others watching her, but she didn’t pay them any attention, she just clutched the paper and read it over again, hoping that if she read it enough times, the words might start to make sense. Outwardly, she was calm, but inside her head, she was screaming. Fear and panic clawed at her like a wild animal.

Why did they all leave? The thought drifted up out of the storm raging inside her. Her father had gone off to the factory, Micah had run off into the scrap fields, and now Anna had abandoned her too. Why did they all leave to do monumentally stupid things? Didn’t they know that they weren’t helping her by leaving her behind?

“Piper.” Gee’s voice broke through her thoughts.
“We’ll get to the capital as soon as we can. With luck we’ll catch her in the city before Doloman finds her.”

Gee’s voice was flat. Piper knew he was just trying to make her feel better—Anna had been gone too long. An express train would have her in Noveen and at Doloman’s doorstep long before the 401 got near the city.

Burying her face in her hands, Piper took a shuddering breath. No, she couldn’t lose control now. She needed to think. If she was going to rescue Anna, she would have to be ready to face Doloman.

Piper looked up and met Gee’s tense expression. Her gaze swept his overalls, bare feet, and tangled hair. Looking at him now, at the soot smudge on his face, no one would ever guess what he was. A chamelin, so powerful, fierce, and beautiful. No one would ever guess he had wings under his skin.

Just like no one would ever guess that Anna had machine parts under hers, or that Piper had magic in her hands that only machines could feel. It made Piper realize how little she really knew about her world and the people who inhabited it.

But maybe Doloman was just as ignorant about certain things. An idea started to take shape in Piper’s mind, a vague notion that became clearer minute by minute. “I have to go to the house,” she said, “the one on top of the hill. That’s where Raenoll’s vision ended. That’s where Anna said she’s going.”

“Doloman will never let you get close,” Jeyne said. “Once he’s got Anna, he won’t risk letting her go again.”

“I have to try,” Piper said. “If I go alone, maybe he’ll let me in.” She saw Gee stiffen. He opened his mouth to speak, but Piper headed him off. “Don’t you see? He has to be curious, wondering how a scrapper managed to revive Anna when everything he tried failed. He doesn’t know what I can do. If I offer to show him my magic, it would at least keep me alive long enough to get to her.”

“That’s crazy.” Jeyne shook her head. “The last thing you want to do is tell the king’s chief machinist what kind of power you have. Bad enough he knows what Anna is. Goddess knows what he would try to do with the two of you together.”

“I’m not going to give Doloman anything,” Piper said. “I’m going to rescue Anna. Like I said”—she glanced at Gee as she spoke—“he doesn’t know what I can do. The raiders didn’t either. That’s our advantage.”

Gee met Piper’s gaze. The two of them stared at each other for a long time as a quiet understanding flickered in Gee’s eyes and his expression softened. Slowly, he nodded. “The key will be to take him by surprise,” he said. “We’ll only get one chance.”

“Then we’re going to have to make sure we come up with an amazing plan,” Piper said.

Just as Piper had imagined a hundred different ways in which she might burn down King Aron’s factory, she had, since she started the journey with Anna, imagined at least a hundred different ways she might arrive in the capital. The 401 steaming into town, its shrill whistle a herald of Piper’s presence—
Look here
, the whistle proclaimed,
here’s someone new in town, and are you ready for her?

Those times when she’d really let her imagination run wild, she’d pictured herself striding into Anna’s house, pushing her way past guards and servants to announce to the grieving parents within that she’d brought their lost daughter home to them. Then the grateful parents would fall all over themselves to hug Piper and shake her hand, offering her anything and everything they owned as a reward for returning their precious daughter.

At more subdued moments, she’d just hoped the guards and servants wouldn’t throw her out on her backside before she could explain herself.

Recently, she’d been hoping and hoping that inside the house on the hill they’d find someone who cared about Anna and would have the power to keep her safe.

None of those daydreams was going to come true.

When Piper arrived in Noveen, she wasn’t even on the 401. Gee flew her away before the train reached the city outskirts in case Doloman had assigned guards to stop the train. Her first glimpse of the capital was from the edge of the ocean, looking up at the city that perched on a cliff.

In the distance, she heard the 401’s whistle as it pulled into the city. The sound had a mournful note to it, as if the big old engine were wishing them to be safe, or maybe that was just Piper’s imagination acting up because she was scared.

The city view distracted her. Noveen was bigger than Piper had ever dreamed. Redbrick and cream-colored stone houses covered the base of the cliff. Situated next to them were the factories. They grew out of the lower part of the city like a black, oozing sore, and the smoke spread even farther, carried on the wind to twine around the houses and cast a pall over dozens of neighborhoods. Gradually, as the land sloped upward, the smoke thinned and disappeared altogether. The royal palace with its fortified stone walls occupied the
city center, and everything else had grown up around it, the buildings and streets taking root on the cliff like a thick blanket of multicolored moss. The houses, Piper noticed, also got bigger and newer farther up the cliff. It wasn’t hard to guess where the house she’d seen in Raenoll’s vision would be—right at the peak, with the best view of the ocean.

The cliff itself fascinated Piper almost as much as the factories repelled her. Some industrious souls had tunneled passages up and down the rock face, and Piper could see lights and movement coming from within.

Gee saw where she was looking and pointed. “Those tunnels come out at different points in the city,” he explained. “They’re all sarnun homes.”

Of course, Piper thought. Underground homes just like in Tevshal, but here the view was so much better. The sarnuns could step to the mouths of the caves and smell the salt water, just soak it up with their feelers. The briny scent tickled Piper’s nose. She’d never smelled anything quite like the ocean. The movement of the water and her boots sinking in the sand combined to put her off balance, but she didn’t mind the sensation. Under different circumstances, she thought she could sit for hours staring at the blue expanse that stretched to the horizon. She felt peaceful listening to the waves crashing against the shore.

“We should go,” Piper said, turning away from the view. “Anna’s waiting for us.”

“You’ll know the house when you see it?” Gee asked.

“I’ll know,” Piper said.

Gee stepped away until he was standing up to his ankles in the water. Piper watched his shadow lengthen and widen, the wings unfold from his back. She turned and looked up at him as the tips of his wings temporarily blocked the sun. He leaned toward her and stretched out his clawed hands to lift her into his arms. Not long ago, Piper had been frightened at the thought of what those claws could do, but now she felt comforted by Gee’s arms around her.

They took off. The ocean swirled away beneath Piper’s feet. The colors of the distant city got brighter, the buildings taller. Gee beat his wings, and Piper clutched his granite shoulders as the cliff face rushed past. They cleared it and soared high above the city. The houses slipped by beneath them so fast, Piper had trouble making out many details, but she knew what she was looking for: columns around the entrance, fountain, opulent gardens. And she hoped they would find it fast. Every minute they were in the air was a chance Gee would be seen by someone on the ground.

“There!” she cried excitedly after Gee had circled the city once. “The gardens—see them? That’s the house. Try to land in those trees over there.”

Gee inclined his head and dove until they were gliding between trees in what appeared to be a small park nestled amid the houses in a private neighborhood.
They touched down near a small pond hidden from the main street. Gee set Piper down and crouched beside the drooping pika branches.

Piper lifted her silver watch and checked the time. “I think an hour ought to do it,” she said. “Don’t try to come onto the grounds until you see my signal. Stay near the cliffs.” Gee inclined his head again and reached out to touch her shoulder. Piper laid her hand over his claw, squeezed, and smiled. “Let’s see how much trouble I can get into.”

The mansion was some distance away from where they’d landed. Piper set out along the wide cobblestone avenue, forcing herself to walk at a leisurely pace, when all she really wanted to do was run full out up to the mansion’s front gate.

Doloman’s house was bigger than Raenoll’s vision had suggested. The manicured lawns and carefully sculpted gardens enclosed the lower stories, and the upper windows facing the ocean ran from floor to ceiling. As Piper neared, she saw that an imposing wrought-iron fence enclosed the whole property, complete with a guarded gate. Only one man on watch, Piper noticed. That was unexpected—and suspicious.

She walked up to the gate, where the guard stood, and she noticed that he carried a revolver at his belt. “Can I help you, miss?” he asked.

Piper was careful to keep her expression serious. “Yes. I have an appointment to see Master Doloman,” she announced irritably—as if it was ridiculous that she’d already been kept waiting half a minute.

“I’m sorry, miss, but if you did, that appointment’s been canceled,” the guard said. “Master Doloman left strict orders that he wasn’t to be disturbed today.”

“Oh, really?” Piper had to struggle to stay calm—this
was
Doloman’s house. She put her hands on her hips and prayed the guard couldn’t see how she trembled. “I guess it’s pretty important if he thinks he can ignore an appointment with someone who has the mark of the Dragonfly.” She pulled up her sleeve to give the guard a brief glimpse of the dragonfly tattoo on her left arm before quickly covering it. She had to admit, Trimble had done a fantastic job on the fake, but it was still a fake—one the guard would be able to spot if he demanded a closer look. Piper hoped he wouldn’t.