Description

A New World is Beginning... and it Starts with an Orphan.

Orphans never have easy lives, but they're especially brutal in the ashfall. Londinium, led by the Gear, is an industrial society where the poor and downtrodden are expected to take physical labor to keep the city in working order. It grinds children to nothing in its factories, forcing them to work hard for money just to pay for their board and food. Survival is a daily struggle, especially for grindery girls - orphans who grind coal into useable bricks.

Patty Rinkin is a rare grindery girl, for she has a last name. She prefers to be one of the crowd, but finds herself the leader after a horrific fire disables the lead girl, who's also her best friend. And one afternoon, Patty finds a dragon's egg among the dust and filth of the factory. But it seems the arrival of dragons is going to just make everything so much harder.

Patty doesn't realize she's been given a gift - a gift that could change the very system in which she is trapped. Will she become part of the Gear's plans to keep its citizens in mortal danger? Or will she learn the dragons can give everyone the opportunity to fight back against the Gear and all the suffering it causes?