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the dragonka can’t. Not on picked-over corncobs and stale poppy buns. Luma obviously belongs to you. That much anybodycan see. Nothing will change that. But we can be partners in his training and share his winnings.” She turned to Deklyn. “That means cooperating.”
    Deklyn grunted something I could only take as grudging acknowledgement. “She is Luma’s master, but we all have to take care of him,
if
,” she said, grabbing the pouch of money from Deklyn’s hands, “if this is going to continue.” One thing I noticed right then was that when Isobel spoke, Deklyn listened. “Plus,” she continued, “the Boot has been looking for our lair for weeks now. It is only a matter of time before they find it. The beast will be well-hidden in Petra K’s.”
    “OK, OK already,” Deklyn said. “But she has no idea how to train a dragonka. That is where we will start.”
    “You can talk to me,” I said. “I’m right here.”
    He turned toward me as though I was some sort of night-sprouting fungi that had popped up without warning. “You have no idea how to train a dragonka, and
you have no idea what you are getting yourself into
.”
    All eyes were on me. I realized then that I had at least
some
power over them. And, I have to admit, despite my distaste for Deklyn and his gang, what Isobel was proposing excited me. More than anything I wanted to escape my mother’s oppressive silence. And that we might actually make some money, despite the danger, made it an irresistible offer. “I don’t care,” I said to Isobel, just to spite him. “Tell him I agree. Luma and I are in.”
    “Fine,” Deklyn sputtered. He obviously did not like being ignored either. “Eighty-twenty split with the winnings.”
    “Eighty-twenty?” I spat out.
    “There are more of us,” he said. Jasper, Isobel, and Abel were all standing behind him now.
    “Seventy-thirty, plus you bring me pomegranate seeds for Luma,” I countered.
    After a moment, Deklyn nodded his assent. He signaled to his gang, and they began to depart.
    “Hey,” I shouted at him. “Thirty!” I held out my hand. Deklyn shrugged, counted a percentage of Luma’s winnings and handed it over to me. It was more money than I had seen at once in my entire life. I grinned, rubbed Luma on the back of the ears, and left the Dragonka Exchange.

Chapter 7
    T he next day I went shopping. I bought a shiny brass cage for Luma, with a feather pillow to sleep on, and a portable nest that fit in my coat pocket. I loaded myself down with poppy-honey buns by the stack, porridge and molasses to sweeten it, sticks of dried bison meat and jars of jam in every flavor imaginable. I visited the tea merchant and picked up tins of jasmine, and smoky oolong tea for my mother. I had been neglecting her. At home, I made her a small feast and carried it in to her room. She must have known I had been sneaking out, but she never let a word slip. But I could see worry crease the sides of her eyes. Those lines had grown like unspoken sentences over the weeks. If she voiced them, would they disappear, like words in the air?
    I put the tray down in front of her but she would not look at me. She just poured a little cream into her tea and watched it cloud up, then stirred it briskly with her teaspoon.
    I began to leave, but my mother called me back when I reached the door.
    “Petra K, come here.” I did as I was told. “It is time you knew. I have protected you for too long.”
    “Know what?”
    “Look under the bed, Petra K,” she said. I did. It was dark and musty but for a wooden box, which I pulled out.
    “Put it on the bed and open it, Petrushka.”
    I did: inside I found—a
doll
? No, it was more like a small, intricately designed automaton. I took it from the box. It was a man with a foxlike face and sly eyes, dressed in a black silk cape.
    “Do you have a coin?” Mother asked.
    “A what?”
    “A coin,” she restated. From my pocket I drew a brass kuna.
    “Hold it toward him,”