The king paused and glanced back at her. “You shouldn’t worry about that right now,” he said. “All you need to know is that I will do whatever is necessary to protect the Dragonfly territories.” He turned and walked out of the gallery without another word.
Piper watched him go, a jumble of conflicting emotions swirling inside her. Though she believed in her heart that she had made the right decision rejecting Doloman’s plan, she wondered now what the future held. Would Dragonfly and the Merrow Kingdom someday realize how much their people were suffering because of their power struggle? Would this obsession with weapons and factories and machines never end, except in war?
And how ironic, Piper couldn’t help but think, that the most valuable machine in all of Solace was about to walk out King Aron’s front door.
It wasn’t until they were safely outside and far away from the palace that Piper finally started to relax. She was bumped and bruised, but the knots of tension that had sprung up all over her body began to loosen. As they followed the signs back to the train station, Piper turned to ask Anna if she was feeling all right now too, and caught her friend watching her surreptitiously out of the corner of her eye.
“What is it?” Piper asked, suddenly worried. “Is something wrong?”
“No,” Anna said quickly. “It’s just …” She trailed off, looking at Piper uncertainly.
“It’s all right,” Piper said. “Tell me.”
“Well, I thought you’d be angry at me—for running off.”
“Oh, that,” Piper said. A wry smile tugged at her lips.
Anna nodded. “I thought there would be yelling—lots of yelling.”
“I do yell sometimes,” Piper agreed. Her smile broadened. “Listen, I’m just glad you’re all right. I’ll let you off easy this time, if you’ll answer a question for me.”
Now that she knew she wasn’t in trouble, Anna’s expression brightened. “Anything,” she said.
“Why didn’t you let me come with you to confront Doloman?” Piper asked, her humor fading. “If you’d told me, I would have.”
“I know. I’m sorry,” Anna said, ducking her head. “But once I realized that I had to face him, I thought it would be better if I went alone, because I knew he didn’t want to hurt me. But you, Piper … I couldn’t risk him hurting you. I thought if I went to him, he would help me remember the rest of my past. In exchange for whatever it was he wanted with me, I thought I could get you your reward.”
“My—” Piper opened her mouth, but she couldn’t find any words. Anna had gone to confront Doloman for her sake? It was the last thing in the world Piper had wanted. She put a hand on Anna’s shoulder. “How do you even know about that?” she asked.
“I heard you talking to Gee and the others,” Anna explained. “I wasn’t asleep. I don’t think I ever really do sleep, at least not like you do. I sort of drift in a fog, a place where there’s no light and sometimes I can hear sounds but not always.” She added, “I can feel pain too. When I was with Doloman, I was in that place, that sort-of-sleeping place, but I couldn’t wake up. It was so long, that time I spent in the dark. I thought I wouldn’t ever wake up, not until I heard your voice, Piper.”
Piper’s chest ached. “You must have heard me say that I didn’t care about a reward anymore.”
“Yes, but you were right,” Anna said. “Your plan was logical, even—I was shocked you’d come up with it.”
“Thanks,” Piper said dryly.
“I mean, if we’re going to live on our own, we’ll have to have money,” Anna said. “If I couldn’t get a reward, I knew we’d have to be able to earn our keep, and we couldn’t do that with Doloman chasing us. You said you didn’t want to be a scrapper anymore. I wanted to give you your wish. I wanted us to be together on the 401. You’ve done so much for me, it was the least I could do for you.”
“I’ve got everything I need,” Piper said, her heart full. “Don’t worry about me.” She wrapped her arms around Anna and hugged her. She didn’t know what the future held, but no matter what happened, she knew she wasn’t alone anymore. She’d protected her friends and found a new life for herself. Right now, that was all she needed.
“We should go,” Anna said when Piper pulled away. “They’ll be waiting for us on the train.”
“In a minute,” Piper said. “There’s one more thing we need to talk about.” But that “one more thing” was big, Piper thought as a knot of worry formed in her stomach. She hadn’t yet told Anna what Doloman had said, about Anna being too broken to live without Piper. How would her friend react? Did she want to be so tied to Piper that she couldn’t leave her for more than a day or go farther than a city away? She hoped Anna could live with that—Anna had to know the truth.
“What’s wrong, Piper?” Anna asked. “You look sad all of a sudden.”
“I’m fine,” Piper said. Her throat tightened. “It’s just there’s something you have to know, about what happened when you went to see Doloman.”
Anna’s forehead wrinkled. “What do you mean? I remember. Guards took me to the house. The servants gave me a room and told me to wait for Doloman. Then I was back in that gray nothing-place again, the place I was in when you first found me. I still don’t remember where I came from, but after I got hurt by the raider, I remembered what I am—part machine, part human.” Anna held up her hands and looked at the backs, as if she saw through to the machine beneath.
“There’s a reason you go to that place,” Piper said, feeling tears well up in her eyes. “You were … hurt … when Doloman found you. Sometimes when people get hurt, even the best healer can’t fix them.” Her voice shook as she said the last part.
“Piper, don’t cry,” Anna pleaded, but there were tears in her eyes too. “We don’t have to talk about this. Let’s just go back to the train.”
“Not yet,” Piper insisted. “I have to tell you what Doloman said.”
“You mean that I can’t live without you—that I’ll stop working?” Anna sniffed and wiped her eyes. “I didn’t need Doloman to tell me that. You’re my sister. I don’t want to leave you, Piper, not ever.”
Her voice broke, and then they were hugging again, standing on the street corner, sobbing and hugging. People walking by were probably staring, but Piper didn’t care.
Through her tears, Piper glanced up at the sky and saw a dark shape briefly dip out of the clouds. Gee flew high above their heads. He circled, and when he saw Piper looking, he dipped his wing. Piper nodded back, letting him know they were all right.
Trimble was there to meet them when they arrived at the train station.
“Thank the goddess you’re both safe,” he said, and grinned. “I mean, I’m glad to see you and all, but Gee was climbing the walls—literally—until he saw you coming.”
Jeyne was in the engine room. Trimble brought the girls to her as soon as he’d had a chance to look at Piper’s head and bandage a few cuts she’d gotten in the fight with Doloman. The engineer confirmed that one of Aron’s guards had been to the train asking about the girls, and Jeyne listened as Piper related what had happened at Aron’s palace. When she finished, Jeyne shook her head and grinned. Piper didn’t think she’d ever seen the woman smile like that.
“Welcome to the 401,” Jeyne said, touching Piper and Anna on the shoulder. The girls beamed at each other.
After they’d told their story, Jeyne sent them to eat and rest and gave them an extra day to recover before they started their new duties as members of the train’s crew. Piper slept more soundly that night than she ever remembered sleeping in her life. When she woke the next morning, the train had left Noveen behind and was headed north again.
Anna was already up and wanted Piper to come to the library. “Jeyne says we’re going to be paid a weekly wage since we’re members of the crew,” she said excitedly. “I want to buy some new books for the library.”
Piper laughed. “At the rate you’re reading them, that’s probably a good idea. I’ll meet you there.
I have something I want to do first.”
She left Anna happily ensconced with her books and headed back to the observation platform. She wasn’t surprised to see Gee standing outside, leaning against the rail.
“It’ll probably still be cold up north,” Gee said when she came to stand next to him. “You’ll need this.”
He held her dad’s coat in his hands. She’d known all along that he had it, but for some reason, she’d never asked for it back. He held it out to her, and she took the worn garment, rubbing the soft fabric against her cheek.
“We’ll be making a stop at Scrap Town Sixteen again,” Gee said. “It’ll be a chance for you to pick up anything you left behind when you ran that night.”
Piper thought about her father’s drawings and letters, her tool belt, and the other supplies she’d grabbed before leaving her house. In some ways, it seemed like a long time ago. She’d taken all the things that were important to her—except one.
“There’s someone I’d like to visit,” Piper said. “His name is Micah. He got hurt right before I left. I have to see if he’s all right.”
“Micah,” Gee said. “He’s your friend?”
“Yes.” Her heart warmed at the thought of seeing Micah again.
“I see.”
Piper heard the uncertain note in Gee’s voice. She turned to look at him, but he was staring off into the distance. The train was running parallel to the coast, and the sun on the crystal blue water dazzled Piper’s eyes, but Gee didn’t seem bothered by the intensity of the glare. She looked at Gee’s hands resting on the rail. Hesitantly, she reached out and laid her hand over his.
“You know, you’re stuck with me now,” she said, trying to keep her voice from quavering. “You had your chance to throw me off the train.”
Gee went very still. Then he stood straight and leaned toward Piper, putting his arm around her. Piper slipped her hand around his waist and laid her head against his shoulder.
They stood like that for a long time while the wind and the salt air rushed over them, blocking out all sound. After a while Piper felt the train jostle them, and she shifted her feet, holding on tighter to Gee. She heard footsteps behind them and turned to see Anna run out onto the platform, her face flushed with excitement.
“Piper, Gee, come quick!” she said. “Trimble’s going to show me an experiment he’s been working on, something about mixing black powder with a sarnun perfume recipe. He says it makes this amazing explosion, and the smoke smells like lilies.”
“Sounds great,” Piper said, grinning. “Just try not to blow up the train—or each other.”
Hand in hand, she and Gee walked back inside. The big black engine blew its whistle and continued its journey north. Piper thought of her father. After he died, she’d dreamed about escaping aboard the 401, but she never thought she’d be calling it her home. Yet here she was—a scrapper, a machinist, a synergist. A chamelin walked next to her, holding her hand. Her sister was half human, half machine.
Miles and miles of track, and the whole world spread out before them, waiting.
A lot of people had a hand in making this book possible, going all the way back to when it was just a vague notion of a dragonfly, a train, and a girl with a stubborn streak who lived in a world of forgotten things. I don’t even know all their names—the people who helped me—but I can start with the names I do know.
Elizabeth, Gary, and Kelly, my critique partners and friends, helped guide this book from the beginning. They made sure my world, characters, plot, and all the other details were just right. And I like to think they screamed the loudest when I told them the book was going to be published. Thank you for that and so much more.
My parents and my brother, Jeff, have seen every high and low of my writing adventures. They put up with all of it and never complained, and they claimed they weren’t at all surprised when I told them the book was going to be published. Thank you for everything.
My incredible agent, Sara Megibow, gave me the best Christmas present ever, and the best New Year’s present too. She calls me a rock star, but she’s the real star.
My editor, Krista Marino, and her team at Delacorte Press understood exactly what I wanted this book to be and helped make it even better. All of you rock.
Two women I respect a great deal, Susan Morris and Erin Evans, helped bring me to this point in my writing career. I thought of you both while writing this book, hoping you would like it.
And now some of those whose names I don’t know: thank you to the crew at the Monticello Railway Museum who spent fifteen years bringing an old steam engine back to life, at the same time sparking an idea in my head about a very different train in a very different world.
Last, thank you to the group of Girl Scouts who heard me speak on a panel about women in gaming at the Gen Con games convention in 2011. You won’t remember me, but you listened to me talk about some of those vague notions about dragonflies and lost things and other worlds, and your eyes lit up. That was the moment I first thought there might be something to this story. Thank you for listening.
Jaleigh Johnson is a lifelong reader, gamer, and moviegoer. She loves nothing better than to escape into fictional worlds and take part in fantastic adventures. She lives and writes in the wilds of the Midwest, but you can visit her online at jaleighjohnson.com.
The Mark of the Dragonfly Page 28
