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    The Ghost Dragon's Daughter
    The Ghost Dragon's Daughter
    The Ghost Dragon's Daughter
    Ebook56 pages36 minutes

    The Ghost Dragon's Daughter

    By Claire O'Dell

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Mei, Lili, and Jun have just three weeks to complete their senior year project, a portable translation device they call the monstrosity machine, which runs on magic and mathematics.

    "We only need to prove the concept," Mei tells her friends.

    Jun wants more than a passing grade, however. She wants that shiny golden insignia on her graduation certificate that says she's graduated with honors. With that, she's guaranteed a job in the best magic shops in Shēn Xiù City. And ai-ya, she needs that job if she ever wants to save enough money to study at university in the faraway Phoenix Empire.

    But getting their monstrosity to work proves to be more complicated than Jun ever predicted.

    "The Ghost Dragon's Daughter is a classic "stepping out into adventure" story, with more twists and turns of classic tropes than the wonderful ghost dragon of the title has scales. There's magic and mathematics, spirit animals and science, and an intelligent young girl who is finding her path to university and love both longer and rockier than she'd expected. As in O'Dell's lovely River of Souls series, the characters are rich, the world building deft, and the prose a joy to read." --Delia Sherman, author of The Freedom Maze

    "Science, spells, and spirit animals... This is exactly the lush worldbuilding and carefully crafted characterization readers saw in O'Dell's Fox & Phoenix, and the return ticket to this world was well worth the wait." --Lisa Mantchev, author of the Théâtre Illuminata series and STRICTLY NO ELEPHANTS

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherClaire O'Dell
    Release dateNov 27, 2015
    ISBN9781311476128
    The Ghost Dragon's Daughter
    Author

    Claire O'Dell

    Claire O’Dell is the author of dozens of short stories and a number of SF/F novels, including the SF mystery series, The Janet Watson Chronicles, and the epic fantasy series River of Souls. Her first novel, Passion Play, won the 2010 RT Reviewer’s Choice Award for Best Epic Fantasy and was long-listed for the James Tiptree award. Her novel A Study in Honor won the 2019 Lambda Literary Award for Best Lesbian Mystery. She currently lives in Connecticut with her family and two idiosyncratic cats.

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      Book preview

      The Ghost Dragon's Daughter - Claire O'Dell

      The Ghost Dragon’s Daughter

      A Seventy Kingdoms Story

      by Claire O'Dell

      This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this story are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

      THE GHOST DRAGON’S DAUGHTER

      Copyright © 2015 Claire O'Dell

      www.claireodell.com

      COVER ART

      Copyright © 2015 Sarah A. I. Schuhmann

      http://www.saraais-artwork.com

      All rights reserved.

      First Edition: October 2015

      Cover Design: Robert Bernobich

      The Ghost Dragon's Daughter

      by Claire O'Dell

      We’re in the basement, the three of us—me, Lili, and Mei. In the middle of the floor is the thing we call the monstrosity machine, aka, 50% of our final grade in magic and mathematics. Tonight we make our first trial run. Tomorrow we present our final progress report. Our deadline is three weeks away.

      Did I mention we’re a little behind schedule?

      Ai-ya. No pressure at all, as Lili would say.

      Mei bends over the tangle of wires, double-checking each plug inside the machine. Lili is curled up on a pile of blankets, with an old-fashioned data writer in her lap. I’m standing next to Mei, holding an oil lantern up high to illuminate the monstrosity’s interior. We would do better with real magic flux lamps—lots of them—but we don’t have the cash for such luxuries. At least we have this basement, which is big and dry and only a little dusty. Mei’s mother has cleared out one corner for our project. She also keeps Mei’s little sisters and cousins away from our equipment.

      "Jun, are you sure about those equations?" Mei asks.

      I glance at the yellowed pages of my second-hand textbook, propped open on a table next to me. I’m sure. It’s just basic multiple integrals and—

      "My dearest Jun, Lili drawls. As we all know, the terms basic and multiple integrals are inherently contradictory."

      Lili is mimicking our teacher again. She’s good at it, too. She knows all of Feng Hsi’s favorite phrases, even that bit of dialect from south of the Seventy Kingdoms that pops out once in a while.

      Very funny, Mei growls. After scrambling around underneath the machine, her clothes are a mess and her cheeks are smudged with dirt and oil. My hands itch to wipe away the grime. Truth be told, my hands itch to do a lot more, but while I’m sure how I feel about Mei—almost sure—I don’t know how she feels about me.

      Idiot. Gschu’s voice echoes inside my skull. What makes you think she’s interested in you or anyone else?

      Gschu is my spirit companion. She’s a crocodile lizard, swift and prickly, and she has no patience with me.

      Shut up, I tell her.

      Gschu hisses—I think she is laughing at me—but doesn’t say anything more. Meanwhile, Mei wants an answer. The numbers are right, I say. I’m sure.

      Lili grins like a cat—a small, satisfied cat. No wonder her spirit companion is a lynx. Lili’s supposed to be entering linguistics data for our monstrosity, but right now she’s watching me with a look that makes my stomach flutter. I suspect she knows my feelings about Mei, but she hasn’t said anything. Yet.

      Fine, Mei says. Let’s make our test.

      She closes up the machine, then plugs in the special handheld scope that measures the frequency of magic flux. Hsi has loaned us the scope from her own personal laboratory. It’s the latest technology, designed to monitor our magical inputs, down to the smallest increment. When Mei hands me the scope, I set the lamp to one side and cradle the device in my lap. Such a beauty, it’s nearly enough to make me forget Mei’s presence, geek girl that I am.

      Readout filter, medium, Mei says.

      I turn the filter dial to the middle range. We want enough detail to adjust any problems, but not so much we get lost in the flood of data.

      Ready, I reply.

      Lili says nothing. Her cat-face has disappeared, and she looks plain and anxious.

      Mei presses the main power button. The device hums. Good, good. Humming means our monstrosity is powering up correctly. The air around us crackles with flux, and the scent of dust vanishes, overwhelmed by the sharper scent of magic flowing around and between us.

      Once the power

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