The Mark of the Dragonfly (37 page)

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 wide 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?”

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.