The Mark of the Dragonfly Read Free Page A

the loaf of bread she’d made the day before and tore off two large chunks.
    Every now and then, she threw an uneasy glance out the window. The green light in the sky grew brighter with each passing hour, and the smell of brimstone thickened in the air, mingling with the scent of woodsmoke from the stove. By her guess, the meteor storm would break just before dawn, which gave her a couple more hours to get ready and get to the shelter.
    She packed a satchel with cloths, heavy leather gloves, a pair of goggles to keep any lingering dust out of her eyes, and a couple of rice balls she’d bought from the market. She went over every item twice to make sure she hadn’t forgotten anything that she’d have to come back for later. As soon as the storm was over, she needed to be among the first out to the fields for the harvesting—Micah would slow her down—she had to be ready to run as soon as the green light faded from the sky.
    She felt a twinge of guilt for lying to him, but the truth was too depressing. The fastest scrappers didalways snatch up most of the valuable stuff. It only took thirty minutes after a storm ended to be left with junk. That’s how good the scrap towns had gotten at scavenging the objects that fell from the sky. If you didn’t get a move on, there was no point digging through the craters. There was nothing valuable left.
    Outside, Piper heard doors opening and closing up and down the street and footsteps passing by her house. A few people called out her name as they passed by her door to make sure she was awake and moving. She didn’t know who they were exactly—she never opened the door when they called to her—but they’d been doing it since the day her dad left the kingdom to go south to work in the machine factory in Noveen, and they’d kept doing it after he died. Piper wondered if her dad had asked them to look out for her while he was away. They never offered to share food with her—generosity only went so far in a scrap town—but she appreciated the little show of friendship, especially in a town where most people never bothered to learn their neighbors’ names.
    Many of the scrappers were nomads by nature, and superstitious. If they didn’t have any luck scavenging in their first few months in a scrap town, they moved on to the next one. They were always sure that all they needed was a change of scenery for a change in luck. As a result, there were always empty houses around town as scrappers cleared out and squatters moved in. Piper figuredthey all eventually ended up back where they started, with no better luck than when they’d begun.
    Her satchel packed, Piper poured the hot tea through a strainer into her favorite fat yellow mug. Curls of cinnamon-laced steam rose in the air. After an impatient minute waiting for the tea to cool, she drank it down, burning her tongue as usual. The scent was amazing, but the flavor was weak. She needed fresh leaves, but it was too much of a luxury to buy them when she still had a little bit left in the box. When she’d finished the bread and drained her second cup, she left her mug on the table next to the machine parts and went out to join the other scrappers on their way to the shelter.
    Frigid night wind burned against her face. Piper pulled her dad’s thick coat around her and hugged herself to hold in the warmth. Nearly Thirdmonth, she thought disgustedly, and winter still held the northern towns in a death grip. The shelter would be a little warmer with the heat of all the bodies, but Piper didn’t like the idea of so many people crammed together in a hole.
    In the distance, on the southern edge of town, green moonlight illuminated the sweeping, snow-covered roof of the Trade Consortium pavilion, the immense structure overshadowing the scrub-pine houses of the townspeople. Made of sturdier oak and pika wood shipped by rail from Ardra’s lumberyards, the pavilion housed the weekly trade markets sponsored by the Consortium.Behind it were