‘No,’ I said to them. ‘We’re beaten. Don’t waste your energy fighting.’
Part of me found it strange that they listened to me. Even Bastille obeyed my command. I would have expected the prince to preempt me and take charge, but he seemed perfectly content to stand and watch. He even seemed excited.
‘Wonderful!’ he whispered to me. ‘We’ve been captured!’
Great, I thought as my mother pushed her way out through the broken door. She saw me and smiled – a rare expression for her. It was the smile of a cat who’d just found a mouse to play with.
‘Alcatraz,’ she said.
‘Mother,’ I replied coldly.
She raised an eyebrow. ‘Tie them up,’ she said to her thugs. ‘And fetch that book for me.’
The thugs pulled out swords and herded us into the room with the scientists.
‘Why’d you stop me?’ Bastille hissed.
‘Because it wouldn’t have done any good,’ I whispered back. ‘We don’t even know where we are – we could be back in the Hushlands, for all we know. We have to get back to the Royal Archives.’
I waited for it, but nobody said the inevitable ‘not a library.’ I realized that nobody else could hear us – which, indeed, is kind of the point of whispering in the first place. (That, and sounding more mysterious.)
‘How do we get back, then?’ Bastille asked.
I glanced at the equipment around us. We had to activate the silimatic machines and swap the rooms again. But how?
Before I could ask Bastille about this, the thugs pulled us all apart and bound us with ropes. This wasn’t too big a deal – my Talent could snap ropes in a heartbeat, and if the thugs assumed that we were tied up, then maybe they’d get lax and give us a better chance for escaping.
The Librarians began to rifle through our pockets, depositing our possessions – including all of my Lenses – on a low table. Then they forced us to the ground, which was sterile and white. The room itself bustled with activity as Librarians and scientists checked monitors, wires, and panes of glass.
My mother flipped through the book on Smedry history, though – of course – she couldn’t read it. Her lackey, Fitzroy, was more interested in my Lenses. ‘The other pair of Translator’s Lenses,’ he said, picking them up. ‘These will be very nice to have.’
He slid them into his pocket, continuing on to the others. ‘Oculator’s Lenses,’ he said, ‘boring.’ He set those aside. ‘A single, untinted Lens,’ he said, looking over the Truthfinder’s Lens. ‘It’s probably worthless.’ He handed the Lens to a scientist, who snapped it into a spectacle frame.
‘Ah!’ Fitzroy continued. ‘Are those Disguiser’s Lenses? Now these are valuable!’
The scientist returned the spectacles with the single Truthfinder’s Lens in them, but Fitzroy set this aside, picking up the violet Disguiser’s Lenses and putting them on. He immediately shifted shapes, melding to look like a much more muscular and handsome version of himself. ‘Hum, very nice,’ he said, inspecting his arms.
Why didn’t I think of that? I thought.
‘Oh, I almost forgot,’ Shasta said, pulling something out of her purse. She tossed a few glass rings to her Librarian thugs. ‘Put those on that one, that one, and that one.’ She pointed at me, Folsom, and Sing.
The three Smedrys. That seemed ominous. Perhaps it was time to try an escape. But . . . we were surrounded and we still didn’t know how to use the machines to get us back. Before I could make up my mind, one of the thugs snapped a ring on my arm and locked it.
I didn’t feel any different.
‘What you aren’t feeling,’ my mother said offhandedly, ‘is the loss of your Talent. That’s Inhibitor’s Glass.’
‘Inhibitor’s Glass is a myth!’ Sing said, aghast.
‘Not according to the Incarna people,’ my mother said, smiling. ‘You’d be amazed what we’re learning from these Forgotten Language books.’ She snapped the book in her hands closed. I could see a smug satisfaction in her smile as she pulled open a drawer beneath the table and dropped the book in it. She closed the drawer, then – oddly – she picked up one of the rings of Inhibitor’s Glass and snapped it onto her own arm.
‘Handy things, these rings,’ she said. ‘Smedry Talents are far more useful when you can determine exactly when they are to activate.’ My mother had my father’s same Talent – losing things – which she’d gained by marriage. My grandfather said he thought she’d never learned to control it, so I could guess why she’d want to wear Inhibitor’s Glass.
‘You people,’ Sing said, struggling as the thugs snapped a ring on his arm. ‘All you want to do is control. You want everything to be normal and boring, no freedom or uncertainty.’
‘I couldn’t have said it better myself,’ my mother said, putting her hands behind her back.
This was getting bad. I cursed myself. I should have let Bastille fight, then tried to find a way to activate the swap during the confusion. Without our Talents, we were in serious trouble. I tested my Talent anyway, but got nothing. It was a very odd feeling. Like trying to start your car, but only getting a pitiful grinding sound.
I wiggled my arm, trying to see if I could get the ring of Inhibitor’s Glass off, but it was on tight. I ground my teeth. Maybe I could use the Lenses on the table somehow.
Unfortunately, the only Lenses left were my basic Oculator’s Lenses and the single Truthfinder’s Lens. Great, I thought, wishing – not for the first time – that Grandpa Smedry had given me some Lenses that I could use in a fight.
Still, I had to work with what I had. I stretched my neck, wiggling to the side, and finally managed to touch the side of the Truthfinder’s spectacles with my cheek. I could activate them as long as I was touching the frames.
‘You are a monster,’ Sing said, still talking to my mother.
‘A monster?’ Shasta asked. ‘Because I like order? I think you’ll agree with our way, once you see what we can do for the Free Kingdoms. Aren’t you Sing Sing Smedry the anthropologist? I hear that you’re fascinated by the Hushlands. Why speak such harsh words about Librarians if you are so fascinated by our lands?’
Sing fell silent.
‘Yes,’ Shasta said. ‘Everything will be better when the Librarians rule.’
I froze. I could just barely see her through the side of the Lens by my head on the table. And those words she’d just spoken – they weren’t completely true. When she’d said them, to my eyes she’d released a patch of air that was muddied and gray. It was as if my mother herself weren’t sure that she was telling the truth.
‘Lady Fletcher,’ one of the Librarian thugs said, approaching. ‘I have informed my superiors of our captives.’
Shasta frowned. ‘I . . . see.’
‘You will, of course, deliver them to us,’ the Librarian soldier said. ‘I believe that is Prince Rikers Dartmoor – he could prove to be a very valuable captive.’
‘These are my captives, Captain.’ Shasta said. ‘I’ll decide what to do with them.’
‘Oh? This equipment and these scientists belong to the Scrivener’s Bones. All you were promised was the book. You said we could have anything else in the room we wanted. Well, these people are what we demand.’
Scrivener’s Bones, I thought. That explains all the wires. The Scrivener’s Bones were the Librarian sect who liked to mix Free Kingdoms technology and Hushlander technology. That was probably why there were wires leading from the brightsand containers. Rather than just opening the containers and bathing the glass in light, the Librarians used wires and switches.
That could be a big help. It meant there might be a way to use the machinery to activate the swap.
‘We are very insistent,’ the leader of the Librarian soldiers said. ‘You can have the book and the Lenses. We will take the captives.’
‘Very well,’ my mother snapped. ‘You can have them. But I want half of my payment back as compensation.’
I felt a stab inside my chest. So she would sell me. As if I were nothing.
‘But, Shasta,’ the young Librarian Oculator said, stepping up to her. ‘You’ll give them up? Even the boy?’
‘He means nothing to me.’
I froze.
It was a lie.
I could see it plain and clear through the corner of the Lens. When she spoke the words, black sludge fell from her lips.
‘Shasta Smedry,’ the soldier said, smiling. ‘The woman who would marry just to get a Talent, and who would spawn a child just to sell him to the highest bidder!’
‘Why should I feel anything for the son of a Nalhallan? Take the boy. I don’t care.’
Another lie.
‘Let’s just get on with this,’ she finished. Her manner was so controlled, so calm. You’d never have known that she was lying through her teeth.
But . . . what did it mean? She couldn’t care for me. She was a terrible, vile person. Monsters like her didn’t have feelings.
She couldn’t care about me. I didn’t want her to. It was so much more simple to assume that she was heartless.
‘What about Father?’ I found myself whispering. ‘Do you hate him too?’
She turned toward me, meeting my eyes. She parted her lips to speak, and I thought I caught a trail of black smoke begin to slip out and pour toward the ground.
Then it stopped. ‘What’s he doing?’ she snapped, pointing. ‘Fitzroy, I thought I told you to keep those Lenses secured!’
The Oculator jumped in shock, rushing over and grabbing the Truthfinder’s Lens and pocketing it. ‘Sorry,’ he said. He took the other Lenses and placed them in another pocket of his coat.
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.