I leaned back, feeling frustrated. What now?
I was the brave and brilliant Alcatraz Smedry. Books had been written about me. Rikers was smiling, as if this were all a big adventure. And I could guess why. He didn’t feel threatened. He had me to save him.
It was then that I understood what Grandpa Smedry had been trying to tell me. Fame itself wasn’t a bad thing. Praise wasn’t a bad thing. The danger was assuming that you really were what everyone imagined you to be.
I’d come into this all presuming that my Talent could get us out. Well, now it couldn’t. I’d brought us into danger because I’d let my self-confidence make me overconfident.
And you all are to blame for this, in part. This is what your adoration does. You create for yourselves heroes using our names, but those fabrications are so incredible, so elevated that the real thing can never live up to them. You destroy us, consume us.
And I am what’s left over when you’re done.
19
Oh, wasn’t that how you expected me to end that last chapter?
Was it kind of a downer? Made you feel bad about yourself?
Well, good.
We’re getting near the end, and I’m tired of putting on a show for you. I’ve tried to prove that I’m arrogant and selfish, but I just don’t think you’re buying it. So, maybe if I make the book a depressing pile of slop, you’ll leave me alone.
‘Alcatraz?’ Bastille whispered.
I mean, why is it that you readers always assume that you’re never to blame for anything? You just sit there, comfortable on your couch while we suffer. You can enjoy our pain and our misery because you’re safe.
Well, this is real to me. It’s real. It still affects me. Ruins me.
‘Alcatraz?’ Bastille repeated.
I am not a god. I am not a hero. I can’t be what you want me to be. I can’t save people, or protect them, because I can’t even save myself!
I am a murderer. Do you understand? I KILLED HIM.
‘Alcatraz!’ Bastille hissed.
I looked up from my bonds. A good half hour had passed. We were still captive, and I’d tried dozens of times to summon my Talent. It was unresponsive. Like a sleeping beast that refused to awaken. I was powerless.
My mother chatted with the other Librarians, who had sent in teams to rifle through the books and determine if there was anything else of value inside the archives. From what I’d heard when I cared enough to pay attention, they were planning on swapping the rooms back soon.
Sing had tried to crawl away at one point. He had earned himself a boot to the face – he was already beginning to get a black eye. Himalaya sniffled quietly, leaning against Folsom. Prince Rikers continued to sit happily, as if this were all a big exciting amusement-park ride.
‘We need to escape,’ Bastille said. ‘We need to get out. The treaty will be ratified in a matter of minutes!’
‘I’ve failed, Bastille,’ I whispered. ‘I can’t get us out.’
‘Alcatraz . . .’ she said. She sounded so exhausted. I glanced at her and saw the haunted fatigue from before, but it seemed even worse.
‘I can barely keep myself awake,’ she whispered. ‘This hole inside . . . it seems to be chewing on my mind, sucking out everything I think and feel. I can’t do this without you. You’ve got to lead us. I love my brother but he’s useless.’
‘That’s the problem,’ I said, leaning back. ‘I am too.’
The Librarians were approaching. I stiffened, but they didn’t come for me. Instead, they grabbed Himalaya.
She cried out, struggling.
‘Let go of her!’ Folsom bellowed. ‘What are you doing?’
He tried to jump after them, but his hands and legs were tied, and all he managed to do was lurch forward onto his face. The Librarian thugs smiled, shoving him to the side, where he caused the table beside us to topple over. It scattered our possessions – some keys, a couple of coin pouches, one book – to the floor.
The book was the volume of Alcatraz Smedry and the Mechanic’s Wrench that Folsom had been carrying earlier and it fell open to the front page. My theme music began to play, and I tensed, hoping for Folsom to attack.
But, of course, he didn’t. He wore the Inhibitor’s Glass on his arm. The little melody continued to sound; it was supposed to be brave and triumphant, but now it seemed a cruel parody.
My theme music played while I failed.
‘What are you doing to her?’ Folsom repeated, struggling uselessly as a Librarian stood with his boot on Folsom’s back.
The young Oculator Fitzroy approached; he still wore my Disguiser’s Lenses, which gave him an illusionary body that made him look handsome and strong. ‘We’ve had a request,’ he said. ‘From She Who Cannot Be Named.’
‘You’re in contact with her?’ Sing demanded.
‘Of course we are,’ Fitzroy said. ‘We Librarian sects get along far better than you all would like to think. Now, Ms. Snorgan . . . Sorgavag . . . She Who Cannot Be Named was not pleased to discover that Shasta’s team had planned to steal the Royal Archives – definitely a library – on the very day of the treaty ratification. However, when she heard about a very special captive we’d obtained, she was a little more forgiving.’
‘You shall never get away with this, foul monster!’ Prince Rikers suddenly exclaimed. ‘You may hurt me, but you shall never wound me!’
We all stared at him.
‘How was that?’ he asked me. ‘I think it was a good line. Maybe I should do it over. You know, get more baritone into it. When the villain talks about me, I should respond, right?’
‘I wasn’t talking about you,’ Fitzroy said, shaking Himalaya. ‘I’m talking about She Who Cannot Be Named’s former assistant. I think it’s time to show you all what happens when someone betrays the Librarians.’
I had sudden flashbacks to being tortured by Blackburn. The Dark Oculators seemed to delight in pain and suffering.
It didn’t seem that Fitzroy was even going to bother with the torture part. The thugs held Himalaya back, and Fitzroy produced a knife. He held it to her neck. Sing began to cry out, requiring several guards to hold him down. Folsom was bellowing in rage. Librarian scientists just continued monitoring their equipment in the background.
This is what it came down to. Me, too weak to help. I was nothing without my Talent or my Lenses.
‘Alcatraz,’ Bastille whispered. Somehow I heard her over all the other noise. ‘I believe in you.’
It was virtually the same thing others had been telling me since I’d arrived in Nalhalla. But those things had all been lies. They hadn’t known me.
But Bastille did. And she believed in me.
From her, that meant something.
I turned with desperation, looking at Himalaya, who was held captive, weeping. Fitzroy seemed to be enjoying the pain he was causing the rest of us by holding that knife to her throat. I knew, at that moment, that he really intended to kill her. He would murder her in front of the man who loved her.
Who loved her.
My Lenses were gone. My Talent was gone. I only had one thing left.
I was a Smedry.
‘Folsom!’ I screamed. ‘Do you love her?’
‘What?’ he asked.
‘Do you love Himalaya?’
‘Of course I do! Please, don’t let him kill her!’
‘Himalaya,’ I demanded, ‘do you love him?’
She nodded as the knife began to cut. It was enough.
‘Then I pronounce you married,’ I said.
Everyone froze for a moment. A short distance away, my mother turned and looked at us, suddenly alarmed. Fitzroy raised an eyebrow, his knife slightly bloodied. My theme music played faintly from the little book on the floor.
‘Well, that’s touching,’ Fitzroy said. ‘Now you can die as a married woman! I—’
At that moment, Himalaya’s fist took him in the face.
The ropes that bound her fell to the ground, snapped and broken, as she lea
ped into the air and kicked the two thugs beside her. The men went down, unconscious, and Himalaya spun like a dancer toward the group standing behind. She cleared them all with a sweeping kick, delivered precisely, despite the fact that she seemed to have no idea what she was doing.
Her face was determined, her eyes wide with rage; a little trickle of blood ran down her throat. She twisted and spun, fighting with a beautiful, uncoordinated rage, fully under the control of her brand-new Talent.
She was now Himalaya Smedry. And, as everyone knows (and I believe I’ve pointed out to you), when you marry a Smedry, you get their Talent.
I rolled to where Fitzroy had fallen. More important, where his knife had fallen. I kicked it across the floor to Bastille, who – being Bastille – caught it even though her hands (literally) were tied behind her back. In a second, she’d cut herself free. In another second, both Sing and I were free.
Fitzroy sat up, holding his cheek, dazed. I grabbed the Disguiser’s Lenses off his face, and he immediately shrank back to being spindly and freckled. ‘Sing, grab him and make for the archives room!’
The hefty Mokian didn’t need to hear that again. He easily tucked the squirming Fitzroy under his arm while Bastille attacked the thugs who were holding Folsom down, defeating them both. But then she wavered nauseously.
‘Get to the room, everyone!’ I yelled as Himalaya kept the thugs at bay. Bastille nodded, wobbling as she helped the prince to his feet. Shasta watched from the side, yelling for the thugs to attack – but they were wary of engaging a Smedry Talent.
After struggling for a second to get that band of glass off my arm – it wouldn’t budge – I pulled open the drawer of the table and snatched the book my mother had stowed there.
That left us with one major problem. We were right back where we’d been when I’d made us surrender. Retreating into the archives room wouldn’t help if we remained surrounded by Librarians. We had to activate the swap. Unfortunately, there was no way I’d be able to reach those terminals. I figured I only had one chance.
Folsom rushed past, grabbing the still-playing music book off the ground and snapping it closed so Himalaya could come out of her super-kung-fu-Librarian-chick trance. She froze midkick, looking dazed. She had dropped all the thugs around her. Folsom grabbed her by the shoulder and spun her into a kiss. Then he pulled her after the others.
That only left me. I looked across the room at my mother, who met my eyes. She seemed rather self-confident, considering what had happened, and I figured that she figured that I couldn’t escape. Go figure.
I grabbed the pile of electrical cords off the ground and – pulling as hard as I could – yanked them out of their sockets in the machinery. Then I raced after my friends.
Bastille waited at the door that led into the archives room. ‘What’s that?’ she said, pointing at the cords.
‘Our only chance,’ I replied, ducking into the room. She followed, then slammed the door – or, at least, what was left of it. It was pitch dark inside. I’d broken the lamps.
I heard the breathing of my little group, shallow, worried.
‘What now?’ Sing whispered.
I held the cords in my hands. I touched the tips with my fingers, then closed my eyes. This was a big gamble. Sure, I’d been able to make the music box work, but this was something completely different.
I didn’t have time to doubt myself. The Librarians would be upon us in a few moments. I held those cords, held my breath, and activated them like I would a pair of Oculator’s Lenses.
Immediately, something drained from me. My strength was sapped away, and I felt a shock of exhaustion – as if my body had decided to run a marathon when I wasn’t looking. I dropped the cords, wobbling, and reached out to steady myself against Sing.
‘You’re all dead, you know,’ Fitzroy sputtered in the darkness; he was still held – I assumed – under Sing’s arm. ‘They’ll burst in here in a second and then you’re dead. What did you think? You’re trapped! Sandless idiots!’
I took a deep breath, righting myself. Then I pushed the door open.
The blond Knight of Crystallia standing guard was still outside. ‘You all right?’ she asked, peeking in. ‘What happened?’ Behind her, I could see the stone stairwell of the Royal Archives, still packed with soldiers.
‘We’re back!’ Sing said. ‘How . . .?’
‘You powered the glass,’ Bastille said, looking at me. ‘Like you did with Rikers’s silimatic music box. You initiated a swap!’
I nodded. At my feet, the cords to the Librarian machinery lay cut at the ends. Our swap had severed them where they’d poked through the door.
‘Shattering Glass, Smedry!’ Bastille said. ‘How in the name of the first Sands did you do that?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said, rushing out the doorway. ‘We can worry about it later. Right now, we’ve got to save Mokia.’
20
Questions.
We’re at the end, and you probably have a few of them. If you’ve been paying attention closely, you probably have more than just ‘a few’.
You should probably have more than you do.
I’ve tried to be honest, as honest as I can be. I haven’t lied about anything important.
But some of the people in the story . . . well, they’re lying for certain.
No matter how much you think you know, there is always more to learn. It all has to do with Librarians, knights, and, of course, fish sticks. Enjoy this next part. I’ll see you in the Epilogue.
‘Aha!’ I said, pulling not one but two pairs of Translator’s Lenses from Fitzroy’s jacket. The Dark Oculator himself lay tied up on the floor as we rode in the prince’s giant glass pig. I’d told my soldiers to get some sort of equipment and dig to the corner of the archives room and remove the glass there, so that the Librarians couldn’t swap the room back and steal any of the other books.
‘I still don’t understand what happened,’ Sing said, sitting nervously as our vehicle plodded toward the palace.
‘Oculators can power glass,’ I said. ‘Like Lenses.’
‘Lenses are magic,’ Sing said. ‘That Transporter’s Glass was technology.’
‘The two are more similar than you think, Sing. In fact, I think all of these powers are connected. Do you remember what you said when you and I were hiding down there a few moments ago? The thing about your sister?’
‘Sure,’ Sing said. ‘I mentioned that I wished she’d been there, because she could have imitated one of the Librarians.’
‘Which I could do with these,’ I said, holding up the pair of Disguiser’s Lenses, which we’d retrieved from Fitzroy. ‘Sing, these work just like Australia’s Talent does. If she falls asleep thinking about somebody, she wakes up looking just like them. Well, if I wear these and concentrate, I can do the same thing.’
‘What are you saying, Alcatraz?’ Folsom asked.
‘I’m not sure,’ I admitted. ‘It just seems suspicious to me. I mean, look at your Talent. It makes you a better warrior when you hear music, right?’
He nodded.
‘Well, what do Bastille’s Warrior’s Lenses do?’ I said. ‘They make her a better fighter. My uncle Kaz’s Talent lets him transport people across great distances, which sounds an awful lot like what that Transporter’s Glass did.’
‘Yes,’ Sing said. ‘But what about your grandfather’s Talent? It lets him arrive late to things, and there aren’t Lenses that do that.’
‘There are lots of types of glass we don’t know about,’ I said. I picked up one of the rings of Inhibitor’s Glass, which we’d managed to get off our arms using a set of keys in Fitzroy’s pocket. ‘You thought these were mythical.’
Sing fell silent, and I turned, watching through the translucent walls as we approached the palace. ‘I think this is all related,’ I said more softly. ‘The Smedry Talents, silimatic technology, Oculators . . . and whatever it is my mother is trying to accomplish. It’s all connected.’
She didn
’t believe what she said about the Librarians ruling everything. She wasn’t certain.
She has different goals from the other Librarians. But what are they?
I sighed, shaking my head, reaching over to pick up the book we’d brought from the archives. At least we had it, as well as both pairs of Translator’s Lenses. I slipped the Lenses on, then glanced at the first page.
Soups for everyone, it read. A guide to the best Greek and Incarna cooking.
I froze. I flipped through the book anxiously, then took off the Lenses and tried the other pair. Both showed the same thing.
This wasn’t the same book.
‘What?’ Sing asked. ‘Alcatraz, what is it?’
‘She switched books on us!’ I said, frustrated. ‘This isn’t the book on Incarna history – it’s the cookbook!’ I’d seen her work with deft fingers before, when she’d snatched the Sands of Rashid right out from under my nose back in my room in the Hushlands. Plus, she had access to my father’s Talent of losing things. It might be of help in hiding stuff.
I slammed the book back down on the table. Around me, the rich, red-furnished room shook as the glass pig continued on its way.
‘That’s not important right now,’ Bastille said in an exhausted voice. She sat on the couch beside Folsom and Himalaya, and she looked like she’d gotten even worse since we’d left the Librarians. Her eyes were unfocused, as if she’d been drugged, and she kept rubbing her temples.
‘We need to stop the treaty first,’ she said. ‘Your mother can’t do anything with that book as long as you have both pairs of Translator’s Lenses.’
She was right. Mokia had to be our focus now. As the pig pulled up to the palace, I took a deep breath. ‘All right,’ I said. ‘You all know what to do?’
Sing, Folsom, Himalaya, and Prince Rikers each nodded. We’d discussed our plan during the chapter break. (Neener, neener.)
‘The Librarians aren’t likely to let this go smoothly,’ I said, ‘but I doubt there will be much they can do with all of the soldiers and knights guarding the palace. However, they’re Librarians, so be ready for anything.’
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