Kind of.
‘Old Smedry won’t be here for a few more minutes,’ Bastille said, standing with her handbag over her shoulder. ‘He’ll be late. How does the library look?’
‘Umm . . . like a library?’ I said.
‘Funny, Smedry,’ she said flatly. ‘Very funny.’
Now, I generally know when I’m being funny. At this moment, I did not believe that I was. I looked over at the building, trying to decide what Bastille had meant.
And, as I stared at it, something seemed to . . . change about the library. It wasn’t anything I could distinctly put my finger on; it just grew darker somehow. More threatening. The windows appeared to curl slightly, like horns, and the stonework shadows took on a menacing cast.
‘It looks . . . dangerous,’ I said.
‘Well, of course,’ Bastille said. ‘It’s a library.’
‘Right,’ I said. ‘What else should I look for, then?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I’m no Oculator.’
I squinted. As I watched, the library seemed to . . . stretch. ‘It’s not just one story,’ I said with surprise. ‘It looks like three.’
‘We knew that already,’ Bastille said. ‘Try for less permanent auras.’
What does that mean? I wondered, studying the building. It now looked far larger, far more grand, to my eyes. ‘The top two floors look . . . thinner than the bottom floor. Like they’re squeezing in slightly.’
‘Hmm,’ Bastille said. ‘That’s probably a population aura – it means the library isn’t very full today. Most of the Librarians must be out on missions. That’s good for us. Any dark windows?’
‘One,’ I said, noticing it for the first time. ‘It’s jet-black, like it’s tinted.’
‘Shattering Glass,’ Bastille muttered.
‘What?’ I asked.
‘Dark Oculator,’ Bastille said. ‘What floor?’
‘Third,’ I said. ‘North corner.’
‘We’ll want to stay away from there, then.’
I frowned. ‘I’m guessing a Dark Oculator is something dangerous, right?’
‘They’re like super Librarians,’ Bastille said.
‘Not all Librarians are Oculators?’
She rolled her eyes at me. ‘Of course not,’ she said. ‘Very few people are Oculators. Smedrys on the main line and . . . a few others. Regardless, Dark Oculators are very, very dangerous.’
‘Well, then,’ I said. ‘If I had something valuable – like the Sands of Rashid – then I’d keep them with him. So, that’s probably the first place we should go.’
Bastille looked at me, eyes narrowing. ‘Just like a Smedry. If you die, I’m never going to get promoted!’
‘How comforting,’ I said, then nodded at the library. ‘I’m seeing something else about the building. I think . . . some of the windows are glowing just a bit.’
‘Which ones?’
‘All of them, actually,’ I said, cocking my head. ‘Even the black one. It’s . . . a little strange.’
‘There’s a lot of Oculatory power in there. Strong Lenses, powerful sands, that sort of thing. They’re making the glass charge with power by association.’
I reached up, sliding the glasses down on my nose. I still couldn’t quite tell if I was seeing actual images, or if the light was just playing tricks on me. The changes were so subtle – even the stretching – that they didn’t even seem like changes at all. More like impressions.
I pushed the glasses back up, then glanced at Bastille. ‘You certainly seem to know a lot about this – especially for someone who says she’s no Oculator.’
Bastille folded her arms, looking away.
‘So how do you know all of this?’ I asked. ‘About the Dark Oculator and the library seeming empty?’
‘Anyone would know those auras,’ she snapped. ‘They’re simple, really. Honestly, Smedry. Even someone raised by Librarians should know that.’
‘I wasn’t raised by Librarians,’ I said. ‘I was raised by regular people – good people.’
‘Oh?’ Bastille said. ‘Then why did you work so hard to destroy their houses?’
‘Look, aren’t knights supposed to be a little less . . . annoying?’
Bastille stood upright, sniffing angrily. Then she swung her purse straight at my head. I started but remained where I was. The handbag’s strap will break, I thought. It won’t be able to hit me.
And so, of course, it smashed right into my face. It was surprisingly heavy, as if Bastille had packed a brick or two inside, just in case she had to whack the odd Smedry in the head. I stepped backward – half from the impact, half from surprise – and stumbled, falling to the ground. My head banged against the streetlamp, and I immediately heard a crack up above.
The lamp’s bulb shattered on the ground beside me.
Oh, sure, I thought, rubbing my head. That breaks.
Bastille sniffed with satisfaction, as she looked down at me, but I caught a glimmer of surprise in her eyes – as if she too hadn’t expected to be able to hit me.
‘Stop making so much noise,’ she said. ‘People will notice.’ Behind her, Grandpa Smedry’s little black car finally puttered up the street, coming to a stop beside us. I could see Sing smushed into the backseat, obscuring the entire back window.
Grandpa Smedry climbed perkily out of the car as I stood rubbing my jaw. ‘What happened?’ he asked, glancing at the broken light, then at me, then at Bastille.
‘Nothing,’ I said.
Grandpa Smedry smiled, eyes twinkling, as if he knew exactly what had happened. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘should we be off, then?’
I nodded, straightening my glasses. ‘Let’s go break into the library.’
And once again, I considered just how strange my life had become during the last two hours.
Rutabaga.
6
Kindly pretend that you own a mousetrap factory. Now, I realize that some of this narrative still might feel a little far-fetched to you. For instance, you might wonder why the Librarians haven’t captured Grandpa Smedry and his little team of spies long before they attempted this particular infiltration. My friends do – as you have undoubtedly noticed – stand out, with their self-driving cars, odd disguises and near-lethal handbags.
This brings us back to your mousetrap factory. How is it doing? Are profits up? Ah, that’s very pleasant.
A mousetrap factory – as you well know, since you own one – creates mousetraps. These mousetraps are used to kill mice. However, your factory is in a very nice, clean part of town. That area itself has never had a problem with mice – your mousetraps are sold to people who live near fields, where mice are far more common.
So, do you set mousetraps in your own factory? Of course not. You’ve never seen any mice there. And yet, because of this, if a small family of mice did somehow sneak into your factory, they might have a very nice time living there, as there are no traps to kill them.
This, friends, is called irony. Your mousetrap factory could itself become infested with mice. In a similar way, the Librarians are very good at patrolling the borders of their lands, keeping out enemy Oculators like Grandpa Smedry. Yet they don’t expect to find mice like Grandpa Smedry hiding in the centers of their cities.
And that is why two men in tuxedos, one very large Mokian in sunglasses and a kimono, one young girl with a soldier’s grace, and a very confused young Oculator in a green jacket could walk right up to the downtown library without drawing too much Librarian attention.
Besides, you’ve seen the kinds of people who walk around downtown, haven’t you?
‘All right, Smedry,’ Bastille said to Grandpa. ‘What’s the plan?’
‘Well, first I’ll take an Oculatory reading of the building,’ Grandpa Smedry said.
‘Done,’ Bastille said tersely. ‘Low Librarian population, high Oculatory magic content, and a very nasty fellow on the third floor.’
Grandpa Smedry squinted at the library through his reddish glasses.
‘Why, yes. How did you know?’
Basille nodded to me.
Grandpa Smedry smiled broadly. ‘Getting used to the Lenses this quickly! You show quite a bit of promise, lad. Quite a bit indeed!’
I shrugged ‘Bastille did the interpreting. I just described what I saw.’
‘Was this before or after she smacked you with her purse?’ Quentin asked. The short man watched the conversation with amusement, while Sing poked around in the gutter. Sing had, fortunately, put away his weapons – and was now carrying them in a large gym bag, which clashed horribly with his kimono.
‘Well,’ Grandpa Smedry said. ‘Well, well. Sneaking into the downtown library at last! I think our base infiltration plan should work, wouldn’t you say, Quentin?’
The wiry man nodded. ‘Cantaloupe, fluttering paper makes a duck.’
I frowned. ‘What is that supposed to mean?’
‘Don’t mind him,’ Bastille said. ‘He says things that don’t make sense.’
His Talent, I thought. Right.
‘And what, exactly,’ Bastille said to Grandpa Smedry, ‘is your base infiltration plan?’
‘Quentin takes a few minutes scouting and watching the lobby, just to make sure all’s clear,’ Grandpa Smedry said. ‘Then Sing makes a distraction and we all sneak into the employee access corridors. There, we split up – one Oculator per team – and search out powerful sources of Oculation. Those sands should glow like nothing else!’
‘And if we find the sands?’ I asked.
‘Take them and get out. Sneakily, of course.’
‘Huh.’ Bastille paused. ‘Why, that actually sounds like a good plan.’ She seemed surprised.
‘Of course it is,’ Grandpa Smedry said. ‘We spent long enough working on it! I’ve worried for years that someday we might have to infiltrate this place.’
Worried? I thought. The fact that even Grandpa Smedry found the infiltration a bit unnerving made it seem even more dangerous than it had before.
‘Anyway,’ Grandpa Smedry said. ‘Quentin, be off! We’re late already!’
The short man nodded, adjusted the carnation on his lapel, then took a deep breath and ducked through the building’s broad glass doors.
‘Grandfather,’ I said, glancing at Grandpa Smedry. ‘These people want to kill me, right?’
‘Don’t feel bad,’ he said, removing his Lenses. ‘They undoubtedly want to kill all of us.’
‘Right’, I said. ‘So, shouldn’t we be . . . hiding or something? Not just standing on the street corner in plain sight?’
‘Well, answer me this,’ he said. ‘That man with the gun – had you seen him before?’
‘No.’
‘Did he recognize you?’
‘No, actually,’ I said. ‘He asked who I was before he tried to shoot me.’
‘Exactly,’ Grandpa Smedry said, strolling over to glance in the library window. ‘You are a very special person, Alcatraz – and because of that, I suspect that those who watch over you didn’t want their peers knowing where you were. You may be surprised to hear this, but there are a lot of factions inside the Librarian ranks. The Dark Oculators, the Order of the Shattered Lens, the Scrivener’s Bones . . . though they all work together, there’s quite a bit of rivalry between them.
‘For the faction controlling your movements, the fewer people who knew about you – or recognized you – the better. That way, they could keep better control of the sands when they arrived.’ He lowered his voice. ‘I won’t lie, Alcatraz. This mission will be very dangerous. If the Librarians catch us, they will likely kill us. Now that they have the sands, they have no reason to let you live – and every reason to destroy you. However, we have three things going for us. First, very few people will be able to recognize us. That should let us slip into the library without being stopped. Second – as you have noticed – most of the Librarians are out of the library at the moment. My guess is that they’re actually searching for you and me, perhaps trying to break into our gas station hideout.’
‘And the third thing we have going for us?’
Grandpa Smedry smiled. ‘Nobody would expect us to try something like this! It’s completely insane.’
Great, I thought.
‘Now,’ he said, ‘you might want to take off those Oculator’s Lenses – they’re the only thing that makes you distinctive right now.’
I quickly did so.
‘Quentin will stay in the lobby and inner stacks for a good five minutes or so – watching for any signs of unusual patterns in Librarian movement or security – meaning we have a little bit of time here. Try to wait without looking suspicious.’
I nodded, and Grandpa Smedry wandered over to peek through another window. I lounged with my back against a lamp pole, trying not to break it. It was hard to remain still, considering my anxiety. As I thought about it, the three things Grandpa said we had going for us didn’t seem to provide much of an advantage at all. I tried to calm my nerves.
A few minutes later, a clink sounded behind me as Sing set down his gym bag of weaponry. I jumped slightly, eyeing the bag – I wasn’t really that fond of the idea of having my toes shot off by an ‘ancient’ weapon.
‘Alcatraz,’ Sing said. ‘Your grandfather tells me that you grew up raised by Hushlander parents!’
‘Um, yes,’ I said slowly.
‘Wonderful!’ Sing said. ‘Tell me, tell me. What is the significance of this?’ He proffered something small and yellow which he had likely found in the gutter.
‘Uh, it’s just a bottle cap,’ I said.
‘Yes,’ Sing said, peering at it through his sunglasses, ‘I’m aware of your primitive liquid beverage packaging methods. But look, see here. What’s this on the underneath?’
I accepted the bottle cap. On the underside, I could see printed the words YOU ARE NOT A WINNER.
‘See what it says?’ Sing asked, pointing with a chubby finger. ‘Is it common for Hushlanders to print insults on their foodstuffs? What is the purpose of this advertising campaign? Is it to make the consumer feel less secure, so they purchase more highly caffeinated drinks?’
‘It’s just a contest,’ I said. ‘Some of the bottles are winners, some aren’t.’
Sing frowned. ‘Why would a bottle want to win a prize? In fact, how do bottles even go about claiming prizes? Have they been Alivened? Don’t your people understand that Alivening things is dark Oculary?’
I rolled my eyes. ‘It’s not Oculary, Sing. If you open the bottle and the cap says you’re a winner, then you can claim a prize.’
‘Oh.’ He seemed a bit disappointed. Still, he carefully tucked the cap inside a pouch at his waist.
‘Why do you care about that anyway?’ I asked. ‘Aren’t you an ancient weapons expert?’
‘Yes, well,’ Sing said, ‘an ancient weapons expert, and an ancient clothing expert, and an ancient cultures expert.’
I frowned.
‘He’s an anthropologist, lad,’ Grandpa Smedry said from beside the library window. ‘One of the most famous ones at the Mokian Royal University. That’s why he’s part of the team.’
‘Wait,’ I said. ‘He’s a professor?’
‘Of course,’ Grandpa Smedry said. ‘Who else would be able to work those blasted guns? The civilized world hasn’t used such things for centuries! We figured that we should have someone who can use them – swords might be more effective, but nobody carries them in the Hushlands. It’s better to have at least one person on the team who understands and can use local weapons, just to be sure.’
Sing nodded eagerly. ‘But don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I may not be a soldier, but I’ve practiced with the weapons quite a bit. I’ve . . . never shot at something moving before, but how difficult can it be?’
I stood quietly, then turned to Grandpa Smedry. ‘And what about Quentin? Is he a professor too?’
Sing laughed. ‘No, no. He’s just a graduate student.’
‘He’s quite capable, though,’ Grandpa Smedry said. ‘He’s
a language specialist who focuses on Hushlander dialects.’
‘So,’ I said, holding up a finger. ‘Let me get this straight. Our strike team consists of a loony old man, an anthropologist, a grad student, and two kids.’
Grandpa Smedry and Sing nodded happily. Bastille, leaning against the library wall a short distance away, gave me a flat stare. ‘You see what I have to work with?’
I nodded, beginning to understand where she might have gotten such a grumpy attitude.
‘Oh, don’t be like that,’ Grandpa Smedry said. He walked over, putting his arm around my shoulders and pulling me aside. ‘Here, lad, I’ve got some things I want to give you.’
Grandpa Smedry pulled open his tuxedo jacket and removed two pairs of spectacles. ‘You’ll recognize these,’ he said, holding up a yellow-tinted pair. ‘I used them back when I first picked you up from the house. They’re fairly easy Lenses to wield – if you can already do readings like you did on the library building, you should be able to use these.’
I accepted the glasses, then covertly tried them on. At first, nothing changed – but then I thought I saw something. Footsteps, in various colors, fading slowly on the ground around me.
‘Tracks,’ I said with surprise, watching as Sing wandered over to another gutter, leaving a trail of blue footprints on the concrete behind him.
‘Indeed, lad,’ Grandpa Smedry said. ‘The better you know a person, the longer the footprints will remain visible. Once we get inside, we’ll split up – you and I are the only Oculators in the group, and so we’re the only ones who will be able to sense where the sands are. But the inside of a library can be deceptively large. Sometimes the stacks form mazes, and it’s easy to get lost. If you lose your way, you can use these Tracker’s Lenses to retrace our footprints. Also, you can probably track me down, if necessary.’
I glanced down. Grandpa Smedry’s footprints glowed a blazing white, like little bursts of flame on the ground. I could easily see the trail of white back to Grandpa Smedry’s black car, still parked across the street.
‘Thanks,’ I said, still feeling a little apprehensive as I removed and pocketed the Tracker’s Lenses.
‘You’ll do fine, lad,’ Grandpa Smedry said, picking up a second pair of glasses. ‘Remember, this is your inheritance we’re searching for. You lost it, and you’ll have to get it back. I can’t hold your hand forever.’
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