Alcatraz versus the Knights of Crystallia (28 page)

Himalaya huffed in outrage, and Sing had to grab her
by the arm to keep her from marching out to defend
her cataloging abilities.

"All right,"
S
hasta said.
"I don't know how long it will be
before someone notices what we've done.
I want to find
that book and get out of here as soon as possible."

I frowned.
That made it seem like they had gotten into
the room by stealth.
It w
as a good plan; if a book disap
peared from the Royal-Archives-Not-a-Library", then it
would probably be centuries before anyone rea
li
zed it was
gone.
If they even realized it at all.

But that meant my mother and a group of about thirty
Librarians had managed to
sneak
past
the archives' defenses.
That seemed impossible.

Either way, we were in trouble.
I didn't have any offen
sive Lenses, and Bastille's severing had her on the brink of
collapse.
That left us with Folsom.
I'd just seen him do some
serious damage, but I hated trusting a Smedry T
a
lent as
unpredictable as his.

It seemed a far, far better idea to get out and grab our
army, then come back for a fight.
I liked that idea a whole
lot, particularly since we'd probably be able to send to the
palace for Grandpa Smedry.
(And maybe the Free
Kingdomer version of a Sherman tank or two.)

But how to get out?
The Librarians were beginning to
m
ove through the stacks.
We were near the middle of the
room, our position shadowed by a lack of lamplight, but
we obviously couldn't remain hidden for long.

"All right," I whispered to Sing and Himalaya, "we need
to get out of here!
A
n
y ideas?"

"Maybe we could sneak around the outside of the room,"
Himalaya said, pointing at the mazelike corridors.

I didn't like the idea of risking running into one of those
thugs.
I shook my head.

"We could hide in the back," Sing whispered.
"Hope
they get frustrated and leave. . . ."

"Sing, this is a whole
g
r
oup
of Librarians," I said.
"They'll
all be able to do what Himalaya did.
They'll sort through
this room in minutes!"

Himalaya snorted quietly.
"I doubt it
,”
she said.
"I was
one of the Wardens of the Standard
–
the
best sorters in
all the world.
Most of those are just basic acolytes.
They'll
barely be able to alphabetize, let alone sort based on the
Sticky Hamstring methodology."

"Either way," I whispered, "I doubt they're going
to leave without
this
.”
I glanced down at the volume I
still carried, then looked across the central aisle to
Bastille.
She looked tense, poised.
She was getting ready
to fight
–
which
tended to be her solution to a lot of
things.

Great
,
I thought.
This is not going to end well.

"If only my sister were here," Sing said.
"She could make
herself look like one of those thugs and slip away."

I froze. Sing's sister, Australia, would be back with the
Mokian contingent trying to lobby the Council of Kings to
make the right decision.
She had the Talent to go to sleep,
then wake up looking really ugly.
That usually meant look
ing like someone else for a short time.
We didn't have her
but we did have the Disguiser's Lenses.
I hurriedly pulled
them out.
They could get me out
–
but
what about the
others?

I looked across the corridor.
Bastille met my eyes, then
saw the Lenses in my hands.
I could tell she recognized
them.
She met my eyes, then nodded.

Go
, the look said.
Take that book to safety. Don't worry about us.

If you've read through my series this far, then you know
that at that age I considered myself too noble to abandon
my friends.
I was starting to change, however.
My nibble of
fame
–
one
I still secretly longed to taste again
–
had
begun to work inside me.

I put on the Lenses and focused, imagining the image of
a Librarian thug.
Himalaya gasped quietly as I changed, and
Sing raised an eyebrow.
I glanced at them.

"Be ready to run," I said.
I looked at Bastille and held up
one finger to indicate that she should wait.
Then I pointed
at the door.
She seemed to get my meaning.

I took a deep breath, then stepped out.
The center of
the room was poorly lit, since we'd obscured a lot of the
lamps with book walls.
Those lamps were hung back in
their places on the walls, even the one I'd tried to use to
burn the place down.

I walked forward, holding my breath, expecting the
Librarians to raise an alarm against me, but they were too
busy searching.
Nobody even turned.
I walked right up to
my mother. She glanced at me, the woman I'd always known
as Ms. Fletche
r
the woman who had spent years berating
me as a child.

“
Well, what is it?" she snapped, and I rea
li
zed I'd just
been standing there, staring.

I held up the book, the one she was searching for.
Her
eyes opened wide with anticipation.

And so, I handed the book to her.

Is this a good place?
Can I stop here now?
Okay, finally.
About time.

I'd like to apologize.
W
ay back in my first
book of this series, near the end, I made fun of the fact that
readers sometimes stay
u
p way too late reading books.
I
know how it is.
You get involved in a story and you don't
want to stop.
Then the author does very unfair things,
like confront his mother face
-to-face at the end of the chap
ter, forcing you to turn to the next page and read what
happens next.

This sort of thing is terribly unfair, and I shouldn't be
engaging in such activities.
After all, there is one thing that
every good book should have in it: That, of course, is a
potty break.

Sure, we characters can go between chapters, but what
about you?
You have to wait until there's a portion of the
book that is slow and boring.
And since those don't exist in
my books, I force you to wait until the story is done.
That's
just not fair.
And so, get ready, here's your chance.
It's time
for the slow, boring part.

The furry panda is a nobl
e creature, known for its excel
lent chess-playing skills.
Pandas often play chess in exchange
for lederhosen, which mak
e up a large chunk of their pre
ferred diet.
They also make a fortune off their licensing
deals, in which they shrink and stuff members of their clan
and sell them as plush toys for young children.
It is often
theorized that one day all of these plush pandas will decide
to rise up and rule the world.
And that will be fun, because
pandas rock.

Okay, done doing your business?
Great.
Now maybe we
can finally get on with this story.
(It's really annoying to
have to wait for you like that, so you should thank me for
my patience.)

My mother took the book from me and waved eagerly
to the freckled Dark
O
culator.
"Fitzroy, get over here."

"Yes, yes, Shasta," he said a little too eagerly.
He regarded
her adoringly.
"What is it?"

"Read this," she said, handing him the book and the
T
r
anslator's Lenses.

The young man grabbed the book and the Lenses; it
disgusted me how eager he was to please my mother.
I
inched away, raising my hand toward the nearby wall.
"Hum, yes . . ." Fitzroy said.
"Shasta, this is it!
The very
book we wanted!"

"Excellent," my mother said, reaching for the book.

At that moment, I touched the glass wall and released a
powerful blast of breaking power into it.
Now, I knew I
couldn't break the glass
–
I
was counting on that.
In previ
ous circumstances, I'd been able to use things like walls,
tables, even smoke trails as a conduit.
Like a wire carried
electricity, an object could carry my breaking power within
it, shattering something on the other end.

It was a risk, but I wasn't going to leave my allies alone
in a room full of Librarians.
Particularly not when one of
those allies was the official Alcatraz Smedry novelist.
I had
my legacy to think about.

Fortunately, it worked.
The breaking power moved
through the wall like ripples on a lake.
The lamps on the
walls shattered.

And everything plunged into darkness.

I leaped forward and snatched the book, which was being
passed between Shasta and Fitzroy.
Voices called out in shock
and surprise, and I distinctly
heard my mother curse.
I rushed
for the doorway, bursting out into the lit hallway beyond and
quickly taking off my Disguiser’
s lenses.

There was a sudden crash from inside the room.
Then a
face appeared from the darkness.
It was a Librarian thug.
I
cringed, preparing f
or a fight, but the man suddenly gri
maced in pain and fell to the ground.
Bastille jumped over
him as he groaned and grabbed his leg; her brother, the
prince, ran along behind her.

I ushered Rikers through the door, relieved that Bastille
had understood my hand gestures.
(Though I used the uni
versal signal for "Wait here for a sec, then run for the
door," that signal also happens to be the universal hand
sign for "I need a milk shake; I think I
’
ll find one in that
direction.")