Piper wrinkled her nose. “I’m fine with the apples, thanks.”
“It was a good thing, what you did,” Gee said. “When I heard all those men screaming, I circled back and saw I had a clear path to you.”
Piper clutched an apple slice in her hand, her fingernail piercing the peel. “Would you really have gone back to stop the train?” she asked nervously. When Gee didn’t respond, Piper realized he would have. She couldn’t believe it. “But you would have given up all that cargo, put everyone on the train in danger, just for me? What were you thinking?”
Gee’s jaw tightened. “I wasn’t thinking,” he said, shaking his head, clearly frustrated at himself. “I didn’t know what I was going to do. All I could think was … was …”
“What?” Piper demanded.
Gee stood up suddenly, pacing the car like a caged animal. “I didn’t want you to get hurt,” he snapped. “Seeing you out there with that crossbow bolt at your throat—it twisted my insides, and I couldn’t think straight. You just … you can’t imagine how scared I was.”
A fire spread across Piper’s cheeks. “Yes, I can.” She stared at the blanket, unable to meet Gee’s eyes. “I felt the same way when they dropped the net on you,” she said in a small voice.
Gee said nothing, but he’d stopped pacing and stood in front of her. Piper still couldn’t look up at him. She was afraid if she did, she would see him laughing at her. Why should she worry for his safety—a chamelin with twice her strength? He didn’t need her help. All she’d done was get herself caught again and make him come rescue her.
She heard Gee utter a quiet sigh, and before Piper knew what was happening, he was kneeling in front of her. Gently, he untangled her hands from the blanket and held them in his own, being especially careful with the bandaged one. Piper’s heartbeat sped up. The fire in her cheeks raced down her neck.
Slowly, he leaned toward her, releasing one of her hands so he could wrap his uninjured arm around her and pull her into a hug. Piper let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding, closed her eyes, and rested her chin on Gee’s shoulder. She could feel his heart beating fast as he turned his head and pressed a kiss against her cheek.
Safe, Piper realized. I feel safe. She wanted to stay like that, listening to Gee’s fluttering heartbeat. But she couldn’t because …
Anna.
Gently, Piper pulled away. Gee leaned back, and this time Piper was able to meet his eyes. Now that she’d found the courage, she couldn’t stop staring into that vivid green field, ringed with yellow at the pupils. The more emotion he felt, the more the yellow came through, Piper realized. Then there was that soot smudge. She reached up and touched it gently before she noticed what she was doing. Suddenly shy, she buried her hands in her lap.
“I’m sorry, but please take me to Anna,” Piper said. “I need to see her.”
Gee nodded solemnly. He stepped back and, without a word, stood next to the bed while Piper got up. She moved slowly—it felt like every muscle in her body had been bruised—but gradually she got to her feet. She wavered a bit, but Gee put an arm around her waist, pulling her toward him. Leaning on him gratefully, Piper limped to the door.
They made slow progress up the train. In the cargo areas, guards were stacking and resealing crates that had been torn open. It looked like some of the raiders had managed to get inside the train during the attack.
“They almost got the cargo,” Piper said, surprised. “How did they get inside the train?”
“They attacked at three different points, took us all by surprise,” Gee said. “We spread ourselves too thin in the defense.”
“But they weren’t just after the cargo. They came after you too,” Piper said, remembering the last raider’s desperate flight on the glider and his attack on Gee. She didn’t ask what had become of the man. She didn’t want to know.
“Yeah, and if I’d figured that out a little sooner, I could have led that last raider away from the train. Then you and Anna wouldn’t have gotten hurt,” Gee said, scowling.
Piper opened her mouth to argue, but they had reached the front of the train, and her attention was taken by fear of what she would soon discover. Standing at the door to Jeyne and Trimble’s car, Piper suddenly couldn’t bring herself to go in. Something was terribly wrong; she could feel it in her bones. And she knew Gee wouldn’t have been acting so strangely otherwise.
Gee knocked on the door.
“Come in,” Jeyne’s voice called from inside.
Gee opened the door and helped Piper inside. Jeyne was sitting at Trimble’s bedside, where Anna lay under a pile of blankets. The girl’s eyes were closed, her face deathly pale. Her left arm, the injured one, was uncovered and had been laid across a small table next to the bed. Trimble bent over the table, partially obscuring Piper’s view. Piper’s heart sped up. Anna was hurt badly and Piper wanted to cross the room, take her hand, but she couldn’t make her feet move.
“How is she?” Piper asked, unable to keep the fear out of her voice.
Jeyne looked up. The older woman had dark circles under her eyes. “She doesn’t have much more color than you do. Goddess, we’re all pretty beat up, but we’re still here.” Piper heard the determination in her voice and knew where her nickname had come from. “How are you feeling?”
“Better,” Piper said.
“Well then, come over here.” Jeyne pulled up a chair for her.
Gee helped her to the engineer’s side and steadied her as she sat down, then retreated to a corner. Without him standing there, supporting her, Piper felt even shakier. She also noticed Trimble hadn’t spoken since she’d come into the room. He remained bent over Anna’s arm, intent on something Piper couldn’t see.
“Will she be all right?” Piper asked. She directed the question at Trimble, but the fireman didn’t reply. “How’s her arm?” she tried again, but he still didn’t answer. Panic gripped Piper. “She’s not going to lose her arm, is she?”
“Calm down, honey.” Jeyne put her hand on Piper’s shoulder. Piper had never heard the stern engineer’s voice sound so gentle. It terrified her. Jeyne had lost part of her own arm—was she preparing to tell Piper that the same thing was about to happen to Anna?
“Tell me what’s going on!” Piper’s voice was louder than she’d meant, but she could barely hold herself together.
“Let her look,” Trimble said. He straightened and turned to Piper. “We might need you. Goddess knows I can’t figure out what to do here. This is way beyond me.”
Jeyne nodded. “At first we thought Anna’s cut wasn’t that deep,” she explained. “There wasn’t hardly any blood, so we brought her back here to patch her up. When she wouldn’t wake up, we realized that the cut was worse than we thought. We took a closer look and … well …” Jeyne paused while Trimble stepped out of the way, making room for Piper to lean in.
The room went dead quiet. Piper’s vision darkened at the corners, leaving only the small gaslight glow shining on Anna’s arm. The knife slash was an angry, jagged line from her shoulder to the curve of her elbow. Jeyne was right, Piper thought faintly, there was very little blood, and as she looked closer, she could see why.
Beneath the surface wound, where deeper layers of skin and tissue should have been, was instead a mass of metal—machine parts, interwoven gears and wires that were more complex than anything she’d ever seen before. Piper sucked in a breath, shocked by what she saw.
Tentatively, Piper reached out and touched Anna’s arm. Her skin was warm and soft, like that of any normal human, and covered in small hairs like anyone else’s. Piper traced her hand upward and stopped shy of the wound revealing the metal parts. The silence in the room, combined with what she was seeing, strained every nerve in Piper’s body.
She hesitated, then gently touched the machine parts before her with her fingertip. Again, the warmth, but with an unyielding rigidity that made Piper recoil. She stepped back quickly and bumped into Jeyne’s chest. The engineer steadied h
er, holding her in place by her shoulders so she couldn’t run.
“You have to help her, honey,” Jeyne said. “That knife cut into her pretty deep, and something’s not right with her. You’re the only one who can do anything for her.”
“But what do you want me to do?” Piper could barely recognize her own voice. She was trembling so badly, she thought she might have fallen over if Jeyne hadn’t been holding her upright. One human hand and one made of metal kept her in place. “I’m only a machinist,” Piper murmured.
“Yes, you are,” Trimble said, “and Anna’s at least part machine herself. And just looking at this small slice of her inner workings, I can tell you she’s far more complicated than any machine we’ve ever encountered before.”
Sudden anger burned in Piper’s chest. “Would you stop talking about her as if she’s some kind of mechanical toy!” she snapped.
“What I’m trying to say is that I believe that what you can do is the best chance Anna’s got for healing,” Trimble said.
Piper thought back to that night in her house when Micah said she was a healer with machines. It seemed so long ago now, back when she was just a local scrapper with a big mouth, proud of her work tinkering with machines. She hadn’t known anything back then.
She hadn’t known they walked around in human skin.
“I have to … have to get out of here,” Piper stammered. How could she possibly help her friend? “I can’t do this. I’m not a healer—”
“For her, you are.” Jeyne gripped Piper’s shoulders harder and turned her, forcing her to look at Anna’s arm again. “Trimble’s right. You’re the only one who can fix her.”
“Fix her?” Piper exploded. “I told you she’s not a steam engine or a … or a pocket watch or a music box! She’s a human being—or at least, I thought she was until about thirty seconds ago! I can’t just grab a wrench and go to work on her. What if something goes wrong and I”—her voice trailed off to a whisper—“kill her?”
“You won’t,” Trimble said. “I think she’s been reacting to you since you first met. You said when you found her she was unconscious and then you brought her home and she got better. Your magic probably revived her without you even being aware of it. The longer you were around her, the stronger she became. I bet she would have died if you hadn’t been the one to pull her out of that caravan wreck.”
The caravan. Slowly, Trimble’s words penetrated the panicked haze blanketing Piper’s mind. Anna had been in a deep sleep that day in her house, and Doloman had said she was half-dead, broken, when she came to him. When he’d seen her awake and alive, he’d acted as if it was some sort of miracle. Except it wasn’t—it had been Piper’s magic all along. Somehow, she’d fixed Anna the same way she’d fixed all the other machines.
“Goddess,” Piper murmured. Was this real? She looked at Anna’s wound again, trying to reconcile that the girl lying motionless in the bed and the arm with the machine parts buried in the skin really belonged to each other. Anna’s arm seemed disconnected from the rest of her, lying on the table under the light. Piper looked from one to the other, and suddenly she saw Anna’s eyelids flicker. The smallest movement, but it drew Piper. She knelt between the bed and the table, not able to look at the arm, just staring at her friend’s face.
Slowly, Anna’s eyes fluttered open and focused on her. “Piper,” she said. “There you are.”
“That’s right,” Piper answered, her voice catching in her throat. “Here I am.” She reached up and brushed a strand of hair off Anna’s forehead. “How are you feeling?”
“Tired,” Anna said. She blinked several times. “I’ve never been this tired—wait, maybe once. It feels like a long time ago.”
“You go ahead and sleep as long as you need to,” Piper said. “We beat those raiders up one side of the canyon and down the other, so you don’t have anything more to worry about.”
A little smile crossed the girl’s face. “The crossbow worked … fascinating weapon … strength of the bow … but … you don’t have to be so strong to use it … machinery helps it work. Needs more study … could improve it further …”
“That’s my girl,” Piper whispered. “Always thinking, always working that mouth.”
“My arm hurts,” Anna said, making Piper’s insides go cold. “And—I can’t move it.”
“Then don’t try,” Piper said, fighting to keep her voice steady. “Lie still, and Trimble and I …” She cleared her throat. “We’re going to take care of you. You just go back to sleep, and you won’t feel a thing.”
“All right.” Anna’s eyes slid shut as if they were weighted. “You’ll stay, though, won’t you, Piper?” she mumbled.
“I’ll be right here,” Piper answered. When she was certain that Anna had fallen asleep again, Piper turned to look at Anna’s arm closer. “Trimble,” she said, and then, louder, “Trimble, will you help me? I’m going to need … aw, I don’t know what I’ll need yet, just stay close.” She glanced up at Jeyne and Gee. “I’ll do whatever I can to save her, but I don’t know if it’ll be enough.”
“We’re all out of our depth here,” Jeyne said. “I know you’ll do the best you can.”
“I have some tools,” Trimble said. He laid a tray of metal instruments on the table at Piper’s elbow. Glancing at them, Piper thought they looked like a cross between machinist’s tools and healer’s instruments. She supposed that was appropriate. She would have rather had her own tools, but she could tell Trimble’s were clean, and she didn’t want to risk the wound becoming infected—if that was possible.
“We’ll let you two get to work,” Jeyne said. “Come on, Green-Eye, let’s give them some space.”
Piper was so absorbed in sorting through the tools, she didn’t realize at first that Gee hadn’t answered Jeyne. Piper glanced up and saw the chamelin still in the far corner, watching them silently. Jeyne walked over to him and said something too low for Piper to hear, and Gee narrowed his eyes at Jeyne.
“I’m not leaving,” he said.
“It’s all right.” Piper gave him a look, trying to put everything she felt into it—hope, fear, gratitude … and more. Something must have gotten through, because Gee nodded and left the room with Jeyne. The engineer touched Piper’s shoulder as she passed her, and Piper looked up at the older woman. “Thank you,” she said.
Jeyne nodded, and then they were both gone, and she and Trimble were alone with Anna’s wounded arm between them on the table.
“How do you want to do this?” Trimble asked in a low voice.
Piper let out a big breath. “To be honest, fireman, I don’t have the faintest idea,” she said.
When she’d looked at just the small bit of machinery visible beneath Anna’s skin, Piper had felt lost. Attempting to fix this would be like Micah trying to fix Piper’s broken watch or Arno Weir’s engine. To someone who wasn’t a machinist, all the gears and springs inside ordinary objects like those would seem like an impossible puzzle. That was what the machine parts inside Anna looked like to Piper. They were so complex—so far outside her experience—she didn’t know where to begin. All she knew was that she had to try, so she might as well get on with it.
“I’ll get some more light over here.” Trimble lit another lantern and pointed to the washstand in the corner. “Wash your hands,” he said. “You’re a healer now, and healers have to have clean hands.”
Piper went to the basin and ran some water. She took the soap and scrubbed, digging her fingernails into the bar to wash away all the dirt that had collected there. She washed her arms to the elbows, grateful that whoever had tended to her injuries earlier had also cleaned her up some from the fight with the raiders. When she finished, her hands were bright red and probably cleaner than they had ever been in her life. She wiped her hands on a towel lying beside the basin and went back to stand on the opposite side of the table from Trimble.
Trimble handed her a scalpel. “Hold this in your hand. Get the feel of it before we start,” he in
structed.
“Won’t she wake up?” Piper asked, casting an uneasy glance at Anna. “If we start messing with … I mean a human would … won’t it hurt her?”
“I’ll give her something that should keep her out for several hours,” Trimble said. “Go ahead and get used to the scalpel. I’ll take care of it.”
Piper held the scalpel and leaned in to take a closer look at the wound as Trimble administered the sedative. That was when she saw it—movement among the metal plates and gears, the flowing wires and bolts. Like a thread of liquid gold, it wove among the machine parts, passing in and out of view.
“Look at that,” she breathed.
Trimble leaned in close. “What do you think it is?” Trimble asked. “Something like blood, maybe?”
Piper shook her head. Instinct sparked in her—it hummed in her veins and raised gooseflesh on her arms. “We’ve already seen that she has blood, just not as much as a human does. Maybe this other stuff is a supplement to her blood, something that performs a similar function, only for a machine—like an energy source.”
“You mean, the way our hearts pump blood in arteries and veins—”
Piper nodded. “Since she has some blood, it means she has a heart, but maybe she also has something else that pumps the gold fluid. Whatever it is, maybe it’s also a power source, her fuel.” After all, a machine needed a power source to function, Piper thought, and a human being needed a heart. She laid her ear against Anna’s chest, hearing the familiar thumping of a human heart. “It doesn’t sound any different from one of our hearts,” she said.
“Here, listen with this.” Trimble handed her an amplifying scope. Piper put the hooked ends into her ears while Trimble laid the rounded knob against Anna’s chest. “Now see if it sounds the same as a human heart.”
Piper listened. The beating got louder, but it still sounded the same as any other human heartbeat. Maybe her theory was wrong and Anna had no supplementary power source. She was about to say so—then she had an idea. Gently, she moved aside Anna’s pillow and positioned the scope at the back of Anna’s neck, over her scar. And there it was. Faintly, Piper heard a low, almost inaudible humming sound. She handed the scope to Trimble to make sure she wasn’t imagining something. The fireman listened, and his eyes widened.
The Mark of the Dragonfly Page 23
