Piper is a 13-year-old orphan living in the Merrow Kingdom in a world known as Solace. She has tangled brown hair and brown eyes. Ever since her father’s death, Piper has supported herself by scavenging the meteor fields outside her poverty-stricken scrap town for anything that can be sold to traders. Some of the objects she finds can be repaired, like watches or music boxes, and Piper has demonstrated a particular affinity with all sorts of mechanical objects.

She is described dismissively as a scrapper because she scavenges for a living, but she also possesses a scrappy temperament. She is particularly protective of those she loves, like Micah, Anna, and Gee. Piper has always dreamed of escaping the poverty of her hometown and is especially enthralled by the train known as the 401, which she hopes one day to ride to the Dragonfly territories to the south.

Piper denies that her talent with machinery is supernatural until strange events prove that she exerts magical control over them. As she later learns, this makes her a synergist. These are people with unusual abilities in various areas of expertise. Piper’s abilities eventually allow her to animate a part-human machine called Anna.