Book excerpt: When Niccolo Polo vanishes on an expedition to Asia and his family writes him off as dead, sixteen-year-old Marco knows that it’s up to him to rescue his father. He sets out on a dangerous journey—but it is not the adventure he bargained for. Marco comes face to face with the magical Eastern world we know from mythology and legend, complete with dragons, flying carpets, and genies. And it is here that Marco finds himself caught in a dangerous plot in the court of Kublai Khan while trying to discover the mystical secret of the fabled dragon’s pearl.