The Mark of the Dragonfly

by Jaleigh Johnson

  Piper faced Doloman. “Let us go,” she said. “If you try to keep us here, eventually Aron’s going to find out what you’re up to.” Her eyes narrowed. “One of us will make sure of that.”

  Doloman laughed, a sharp, ugly bark that echoed in the quiet room. “You think you can threaten me? You’re not leaving this room.”

  Behind her, Anna trembled. “Piper,” she pleaded.

  “It’s all right,” Piper said. “He’s just trying to scare us. Anyway, don’t you have something you want to give your ‘father’?”

  “Enough,” Doloman growled. “Guard!”

  “Anna, get back!” Piper raised the revolver, but Doloman slapped it out of her hand and sent it skittering across the floor under the desk. She tried to dodge as he lunged at her, but he was too fast. He backhanded her across the face. Pain exploded in her cheek and jaw, and she staggered and fell, tasting blood in her mouth as she hit the floor.

  “Don’t hurt her!” Anna shouted. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the slender glass vial Piper had slipped there. Before Doloman could react, she smashed it on the floor at his feet.

  Piper dove aside as tongues of blue flame leaped from the shattered vial, burning through Doloman’s trousers and suit coat. The machinist shrieked, slapping at his clothing to try to put the fire out. Sparks flew to the desk, catching the papers stacked there and setting them ablaze.

  Piper ran to the mantel and grabbed the bronze statue of the elephant and raptor. The metal was slick in her sweaty palms. She reared back and hurled the statue at one of the enormous windows. With a crash, the bronze block tore through the glass, and a shower of glittering shards rained down on the floor and the balcony beyond the window.

  “Come on!” Piper yelled at Anna.

  Anna ran to Piper and grabbed her hand. “Where are we going?” she asked as Piper pulled her through the broken window and out to the narrow balcony. “The prey should never back itself into a corner. Logically, we should have run for the door to the hall.”

  “We haven’t done anything logical on this trip. Why start now?” Piper squinted at the horizon, the dazzling sunlight glinting off the ocean. She waved her arms frantically. For a heart-stopping moment, she saw nothing. Then a speck of movement caught her eye—a figure gliding over the water toward them. “When I tell you to, jump!”

  “What?” Anna clutched Piper’s arm, digging her fingernails into Piper’s skin. “That’s … that’s …”

  “Trust me.” Piper glanced back inside the house. Doloman had put the flames out and was scrambling up from the floor. Trimble’s chemical cocktail hadn’t been as potent as she’d hoped. It was now or never. “Jump!” she screamed.

  Piper didn’t really expect Anna to jump. She had her hand at Anna’s back, prepared to give her a shove, so she was surprised when Anna launched herself off the balcony.

  Piper watched as Anna fell toward the gliding figure. Gee soared up and snatched Anna out of the air, holding her tightly against his chest. Then he flew away toward the gardens and the stone fountain on the lawn. Piper counted the seconds in her head. Gee had warned her to give him at least a twenty count before she jumped.

  At thirteen, Piper felt a hand close on her upper arm. She screamed as Doloman yanked her back into the room and threw her to the floor. She caught herself on her hands and rolled, ending up on her back, sprawled in front of the machinist.

  Doloman had retrieved the revolver from beneath the desk, and he crouched over her, pointing it at her. A crazed light shone in his eyes. “The worst part is that I can’t kill you,” he said. “Not if it will endanger her. But I can hurt you. And I assure you, I will do that happily.”

  At that moment, the hall door burst open, and a pair of guards came rushing into the room. “Sir, King Aron’s guards are at the gates. They’re demanding you come to the palace at once—”

  “Don’t let them up here!” Doloman screamed. His face drained of color but for twin splotches of red on his cheeks. He swung the revolver around and pointed it at the closest guard. “Get out! Get out!”

  The guards backed out of the room, their hands in the air, shocked expressions on their faces. Piper heard raised voices coming from somewhere downstairs. “You’re the one who’s backed into a corner now,” she said. “How are you going to explain all this to the king?”

  Before Doloman could reply, movement flashed across the shattered window. Hope surged within Piper as Gee landed on the edge of the balcony. As she watched, he ripped away what was left of the window frame with his clawed hands. He tried to force his way in through the opening, but his body was still too big to fit through it in his beast form. He snarled at Doloman, but the voices coming from downstairs had distracted the machinist. He stood frozen, unsure.

  Piper seized the moment. She scrambled to her feet and took off running toward the window. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Doloman spin and raise the revolver. Panic clawed at her insides. Piper stopped and turned, trying to focus her power on the gun, willing it to explode just as the slaver’s gun had, but Doloman was too fast.

  “Gee, watch out!”

  The crack of the gunshot drowned out Piper’s scream. Terror overcame her as she braced for the pain, but none came. The bullet struck the far wall just above her head, raising a puff of plaster dust. Doloman fired again, but this time Piper heard only a click. No more bullets.

  Piper didn’t waste a second. She scrambled to the window, but just as she threw one leg out, Doloman slammed into her back, knocking her off balance. Piper yelped as the breath whooshed out of her body, and Doloman drove them both through the broken window onto the balcony.

  Piper had a brief, dizzying view of the sky and the gardens below, and for a terrifying second she thought she was going to fall. Then it seemed as if a wall rose up in front of her, and Gee was there, catching her against his chest. Piper’s knees went weak with relief as she wrapped her arms around his shoulders.

  Gee’s weight steadied her and kept them all from plunging off the balcony, but they were nowhere near safe yet. Piper stood in a pile of broken glass, Doloman so close she could feel his breath on her neck. Gee pulled her securely against him, and Piper felt him trying to push off the ledge with his feet. All they had to do was get airborne and they’d be free, Piper thought as she struggled to hold on to Gee.

  Suddenly, Piper’s head wrenched back, a fire spreading across her scalp as Doloman grabbed her by the hair. She screamed as he pulled her back inside through the window. Panic swept through her. She was slipping from Gee’s grasp.

  A loud crash sounded from the far end of the room, as if the door had been ripped off its hinges. Footsteps pounded across the floor, and Piper felt Doloman’s grip on her hair loosen. She turned to see what the commotion was.

  Her mouth fell open. Armed guards filled the room—there had to be at least a dozen of them—and they weren’t dressed like Doloman’s guards. These men and women wore green and gold livery, just like the colors of Anna’s tattoo.

  One of the guards stepped forward. “Master Doloman,” he said, “I am here to place you and your household under arrest on suspicion of treason. You will surrender yourselves and accompany us to the palace for questioning.”

  Treason, Piper echoed silently, her thoughts whirling. Did that mean the king had somehow discovered Doloman’s plan to conspire with the Merrow Kingdom?

  Doloman let go of Piper and turned to face the guards. Outwardly, he appeared unafraid, but Piper saw that his hands, held slackly at his sides, trembled ever so slightly. “What is this nonsense?” he shouted. “As the king’s advisor, I demand you leave my property at once! I bear the mark of the Dragonfly—I am beyond your authority!”

  “It was the king himself who commanded that we take you,” said the guard. “If you surrender yourself without violence, we will not put you in chains.”

  Doloman was visibly trembling now. “How dare you!” he cried.

  Piper felt Gee tugging at her arm insistently,
and her heart pounded as she surveyed the room. Most of the guards had fixed their eyes on Doloman, but several were watching her.

  She wouldn’t get out the window. Gee was a different story. The guards’ view of him was blocked, but as soon as either of them moved, the guards would see him and he’d be caught. Piper couldn’t let that happen. She cared about her friend too much to let him be arrested.

  “Go,” she whispered to Gee, keeping her eyes on the guards, “before they see you.” Piper wasn’t surprised to hear Gee’s soft growl of protest. He wouldn’t leave her. Tears pricked her eyes as she reached behind her out the window and gently pushed his chest. “Please, Gee. I’ll be all right. Get back to the 401 and come up with a new plan.”

  The guards started to surround Doloman. Piper felt a surge of panic and pushed harder against Gee’s chest. “Go,” she hissed quietly.

  Gee growled again, and Piper thought he wasn’t going to listen to her. Her heart sank, but then suddenly, she felt a rush of wind at the back of her neck as Gee spread his wings and jumped off the balcony into the air. She closed her eyes as a mixture of relief and fear washed over her. Gee was safe, but she wasn’t. In only a moment, the guards were pulling her away from the window. They didn’t put chains on her, but their grip on her arms was rough and unbreakable. Piper stared at the floor as they led her and Doloman out of the room. It was going to take the best plan in the world to get her out of this mess.

  Things were worse than Piper had thought.

  The guards marched her back through the house, down the stairs, and out the front door to where several carriages waited. Standing there on the drive was another guard, holding Anna by the arm.

  Piper felt as if someone had knocked the wind out of her. She’d hoped that Anna had gotten away, but the king’s guards must have found her in the gardens. The plan had been for Gee to leave Anna hiding near the fountain while he came back for Piper, and then they would all escape together.

  But nothing had happened like she’d planned, Piper thought sadly. And now they were going to the palace—the last place in the world she’d ever expected or wanted to be.

  The guards put the girls in one of the carriages, and Anna sat down next to Piper, immediately taking her hand. “Are you all right?” she asked.

  Piper tried to come up with something reassuring to say, but she was all out of ideas, so she just squeezed Anna’s hand and smiled weakly. “I’m fine,” she said.

  As the carriage pulled away from the house, Piper glanced out the window and saw Doloman being herded into another carriage by a pair of guards. There were iron manacles on his wrists. He must have put up a fight in the end. Seeing the wolf finally in chains made her feel a little bit safer, though not much.

  She had heard the guards talking about Doloman as they led her through the house. The king’s spies had intercepted messages sent by him to the royal palace in Ardra. The messages revealed that he’d been conspiring with the Merrow Kingdom for months, feeding them detailed information about the Dragonfly territories’ military strength and the layout of the palace, and letting them know when iron shipments were scheduled to come from the mines so that the Merrow Kingdom could hire raiders to try to steal them.

  Piper had listened closely for any mention of Anna in Doloman’s list of crimes, but so far she’d heard nothing from the guards. As far as she could tell, they were confused about who the girls were, and Doloman had refused to answer when the guards questioned him about their identities. Piper wondered if that meant that even the Merrow Kingdom didn’t know about Anna. If so, that was no small thing to be grateful for. It meant Doloman had been very careful about keeping her a secret.

  But what would Doloman tell the king? And what would Aron do with Anna once he learned what she was? Would he be like Doloman and try to reap as much technology from her as he could? Piper shuddered at the thought. There was no use speculating right now. All Piper could do was keep quiet herself while she tried to come up with a plan.

  The journey to the palace seemed to take forever as their carriage wound through the city streets. When they finally arrived, Piper expected the guards to throw them directly into a cell and lock them up, so she was surprised when they led her and Anna through the front entrance and to a small gallery off the main receiving hall. There they were told to wait for King Aron himself.

  Piper tried to distract herself from her fear by examining the portraits that lined the gallery walls, pictures of past monarchs of the Dragonfly territories. A pair of glass display cases stood in the center of the room. Inside were two models. One was of a huge steamship, a steel-hulled behemoth that in real life would be bigger than any man-made craft Piper had ever seen. The other model was a sky ship. Its hull was similar in size and design to the ocean vessel, but it had huge wings that sprouted from its sides, making it look a bit like a dragonfly. These wings were bigger than the mountain ice dragon’s, though, and made of silk and veined with metal like the mechanical dragonfly from Anna’s tattoo. Piper had to admit they were impressive, but she still preferred the 401.

  “Beautiful, aren’t they?” said a voice from the doorway. “You’re looking at the future of Solace right there.”

  A prickling sensation touched the back of Piper’s neck. She and Anna turned. A man stood in the gallery doorway, tall and slender, dressed in a tailored gray suit with a gold watch fob.

  King Aron was younger than Piper had expected. His hair and mustache were honey-colored, with light streaks of gray running through them. He wore spectacles, and his boots clicked on the marble floor as he approached. A sparkle at his chest caught Piper’s eye. Attached to the lapel of the king’s jacket was a gold dragonfly broach.

  There he is, Piper thought, with an oddly detached calm. The man who killed my father. She clenched her jaw and forced aside the burning anger before it rose within her. She needed a clear head if she was going to get them out of this.

  Anna curtseyed to the king, and Piper tried to imitate her as best she could. Nervousness made her stumble, but the king didn’t seem to notice.

  “I’ve spoken to Master Doloman,” Aron said, “and he has confessed to conspiring with the Merrow Kingdom to overthrow me.” The king spoke matter-of-factly, but there was an icy glint of anger in his eyes. “In exchange for his confession, I have decided to show mercy and not sentence him to death. He will, however, be imprisoned for the rest of his life. You will not see him again.” The king watched them as he spoke, and now there was a hint of confusion in his blue eyes. “He was less forthcoming about who the two of you are,” he said, “and what you were doing at his house.”

  Surprised, Piper fought to keep her expression neutral, but she felt a flutter of hope for the first time since she’d entered the palace. Doloman hadn’t revealed Anna’s secret. For whatever reason, he’d chosen to protect her.

  Pinned by the king’s icy gaze, Piper swallowed and scrambled to decide what she should say. She decided to keep things simple. “Anna and I are part of the 401’s crew,” she said, glancing quickly at her friend to make sure her sleeve was covering the dragonfly tattoo. Thankfully, it was. “We work for Jeyne Steel.”

  “I see,” the king said. Piper couldn’t guess what he might be thinking. “And how did you come to be in Master Doloman’s home? My guards told me you and he were fighting like savage animals when they found you.”

  “That’s … true,” Piper said, trying to stall. “I was—”

  “It was my fault,” Anna interrupted, taking a step forward. “She was protecting me.” Piper turned to look at her, trying to keep the surprise off her face. What was her friend up to? Piper begged Anna with her eyes not to tell the king the truth.

  “Oh?” The king looked at Anna expectantly. “Explain, please.”

  “W-well,” Anna stammered, “Master Doloman was traveling to Noveen on the 401, staying in the private suite. And I was in charge of cleaning it and the other passenger areas.” Anna glanced at Piper as she spoke, and Piper saw in her wi
de eyes the fear she was trying to hide. She nodded at her friend, silently encouraging her.

  “Go on,” the king said, sounding impatient. He seemed to believe the story—so far.

  Anna took a breath and continued. “One day while I was cleaning, I found one of Master Doloman’s letters on the floor under the table. I read the letter—I know I shouldn’t have. It said that he was working with the Merrow Kingdom. I was scared, and I didn’t know what to do, so I showed the letter to Piper. But before we could tell anyone, Master Doloman found out. He kidnapped us and took us back to his house.”

  “We were trying to escape when your guards broke into the house,” Piper said, finishing the story. Her heart pounded as she waited for the king’s reaction. Would he believe them?

  The king stroked the edges of his mustache as he gazed at the two of them in silence.

  Finally, the king nodded. “It sounds like it was very lucky for you that my guards arrived when they did,” he said.

  “Yes, sir, it was,” Anna said, and beside her, Piper breathed a quiet sigh of relief. Unbelievably, it looked like Anna’s secret was safe.

  We might actually escape this mess, Piper thought.

  “Sir,” she said, addressing the king, “if that’s all you need from us, we really should get back to the 401. They’ll be missing us.” Actually, Gee was probably going out of his mind right about now. Piper hoped they could escape before the chamelin mounted an assault on the palace.

  “I’ll need to send word to the 401, confirm your identities, but after that, yes, I believe it’s fine for you to go,” Aron said. “Now that that’s settled, I have matters I must attend to.”

  With a nod, he headed for the door to the gallery. Matters to attend to, Piper echoed silently. Like the Merrow Kingdom. What would happen now that Doloman’s plan had failed? Before she’d fully considered what she was doing, Piper turned and spoke to the king’s retreating back. “Will there be a war?” she asked, her voice echoing through the quiet gallery. “With the Merrow Kingdom?”