“At least that’s something,” I said.
“Alcatraz,” Himalaya said softly. “There’s one more thing. I touched a piece of Shielder’s Glass here; we brought it along for cover, but it ran out of brightsand quickly. Alcatraz … when I touched it … it started glowing.”
I felt cold.
“You’re not an Oculator.”
“No, never have been. Folsom isn’t one either. But he can make the glass glow too. What does it mean?”
It meant I had no idea what was going on. It wasn’t only me and Grandpa, it seemed, who were making glass act crazy. The effect was multiplied in us, but if it was happening to Himalaya and Folsom too …
“Alcatraz, please,” she said. “I have to get back to the fighting. But if you can do something to help us out, we’d really appreciate it.”
More people relying on me. I felt a knot in the bottom of my stomach as Himalaya hung up. The Free Kingdoms Air Guard had come, the Librarian resistance, even Charles and his friends, all because they’d believed in my speech. I was the face of this rebellion, improvised though it was.
How in the world was I going to save them? Most days it felt like I could barely save myself.
We reached the tunnel that would lead to the Forgotten Language archive, and turned into it. Once again our only light became that of skull-shaped lamps on the walls. This corridor felt quiet, almost solemn, compared to the chaos outside.
“The Scrivener,” I said, shoving the phone back into my pocket and looking toward my mother. “That Dark Oculator confirmed to me that someone is using that name. Do you know what he looks like? Maybe we can confirm if this is Biblioden returned, or just someone using the title.”
“That will be tough,” my mother said. “We don’t even have pictures of him—not that the Librarian high-ups show off. But … Alcatraz, I doubt any other Librarian would claim that title. We have to confront the possibility that Biblioden found a way to bring himself back to life. Either that or he was never actually dead in the first place.”
I’d like to pause here and say something clever.
I’d like to, but I can’t because I’m not really feeling clever at the moment. So instead I’m going to include the mating call of the wooly sea sloth:
“Hey, wanna grab a pizza?”
Ah, such magnificent animals.
We reached an intersection in our tunnel. The wind was blowing more strongly from the left fork, and that’s the direction my mother turned. The direction of the archive we wanted.
I, however, turned right.
“Alcatraz?” my mother called, stopping at the intersection, though Dif followed me immediately. Finally I heard her footfalls racing after me down the corridor.
From my memory of the map, I only needed to count down four rooms in this tunnel to get where I wanted to go. When I arrived, I was disappointed to find a locked steel door blocking the entrance. Fortunately, when my mother drew close, a light on the side of the door turned green. The authenticator had enough clearance to get us in.
“What is this?” Dif asked.
“Chemicals lab and medical storage?” my mother asked, reading the words—etched into the stone in a cryptic language I couldn’t decipher—above the entrance. “Why have you come here?”
I placed my hand on the door. “Because,” I said, “I have a friend in a Librarian-induced coma, and this is precisely the sort of place they’d keep the cure.”
Chapter
17
I can’t drive a car. But if I could drive a car, and if this book were a car, my foot would be on the gas pedal and we’d be going about 200 miles an hour right now.
I’ve thought quite a bit about these last chapters of my autobiography. You are now approaching the end of the fifth book, the last book. You’ve dedicated hours upon hours of your life studying my exploits. It’s all been pointing at this.
I want you to understand the gravity of this moment; I need you to realize exactly how solemn all this is. And so, I’m going to do something I’ve never done before. Something incredible, something dangerous, and something completely unexpected.
I’m going to let you skip ahead.
Yes, I know. In every book so far, I’ve forbidden you from looking ahead. I’ve mocked and derided those who do so. I told you to never, never, never look ahead in a book.
And now I’m letting you. That’s how important this ending is. That’s how dangerous all this is.
We have to do it in a controlled way though. At the end of this introduction, I am giving you formal permission to look ahead to Chapter Twenty and read the first two paragraphs here.
Now, make sure you read only the first two paragraphs, and of only that chapter. No peeking at anything else. Just those two paragraphs.
Read them out loud.
I inched open the door into the chemical storage facility and got a faceful of wind; the air vents inside were blowing full force. This chamber was all smooth metal surfaces, distinctly different from the organic “rocky cavern” feel of the rest of the Highbrary. A pair of Librarians moved inside, stacking a set of glass tubes on a rack. They wore white robes instead of black, and spoke in hushed whispers.
“I’m telling you, I saw it,” one of them was saying. “I was on the expedition to Alexandria; I know what they look like. I don’t know why those spirits are making their way here, but they are.”
I pulled back, letting Dif and my mother peek through the crack. “We’ll have to wait until those Librarians are gone,” I whispered to the two of them.
“No time,” my mother said.
She stood up and shoved her way into the room. I stifled a yelp of annoyance and fished for my Shamefiller’s Lens. But I didn’t dare use that on people. Not even Librarians. I—
“You two!” my mother barked. “We have wounded in the main hall.”
The two Librarian scientists—a man and a woman—spun about, took in Mother’s black robe, then glanced at the light on the wall indicating that she was allowed into the room.
“Wounded?” the male Librarian scientist asked. “Why would there be wounded?”
“Haven’t you been paying attention?” Mother snapped. “Useless fools! Rebels have broken into the Highbrary.”
“Did they cause the wind?” the other scientist asked, pointing toward a stack of papers they’d had to weigh down with beakers full of water.
“Obviously,” Mother said. “They also brought some of our own weapons, stolen from the battlefield in Mokia, and are using them to knock our troops unconscious. I need the cure, stat.”
“Stat?” the woman asked.
“It’s Latin,” my mother said. “It means I’ll rip out your tongues if you don’t obey RIGHT NOW.”
They obeyed, rushing to a cabinet and unlocking it. My mother folded her arms as I joined her; then she cocked an eyebrow at me. I might not have thought highly of her parenting skills, but I did have to admit that she had an enviable ability to get her way. People tended to do what she said, if only because her presence was so loathsome they wanted to be free of her as soon as possible.
The female scientist came back with a tiny vial, smaller than a perfume sampler. My mother looked at it, skeptical.
“We’ll need way more than one vial,” I said.
“No you won’t,” the woman said, unscrewing the lid. “This stuff is super concentrated. You’d be surprised at how much a few drops can do. We merely have to hold it up beneath the subject’s nose, and once they smell the fumes they’ll awaken.”
The vial let out a distinctive scent of cinnamon. It seemed safe to breathe. My mother looked to me, and I nodded. It would at least be enough for Bastille.
“We’ll take it,” my mother said, reaching for the vial.
“We’re not allowed to let level-eight superchemicals out of our sight,” the woman said, putting the lid back on.
My mother glared at her, but the scientist remained firm.
“Fine,” my mother snapped. “Take it
to the central sanctum, near the altar. Administer it to any who have fallen.”
“Uh…” the woman said, shuffling. “Is that where everyone is fighting…?”
“That’s what I said.”
“But I’m a scientist.”
“Don’t worry,” my mother said. “You can take your colleague. I’m certain the two of you will be safe together.”
After a short staring match, the woman wilted, then nodded. The two scientists left, scuttling away before my mother’s glare like they’d been caught eating apples in Eden.
I pushed the door shut behind them, then hurried to the cabinet where they’d gotten out the vial. It was locked. I pried at it, cursing softly. The whole thing was metal. I’d need a crowbar to get in.
“This is a waste of our time,” Mother said, folding her arms.
“My friends,” I muttered, “are counting on me.”
“Your friends are not as important as the fate of the world.”
“I’ve kind of got to agree,” Dif said. “As awesomely yet irresponsibly impulsive as this was, Cousin, we can’t spend much time here.”
“Just a minute,” I said, grabbing a screwdriver off a nearby table, then trying to use it to pry the medicine case open.
This was ridiculous. Here I was, trying to break something. And failing. How often had that happened in my life? True, my Talent had occasionally broken everything except the item I wanted, but during these last few months with my family, I’d learned control. I’d stopped breaking things by accident. I’d channeled my powers, as Grandpa had taught.
And now … nothing. It was alarming how powerless I suddenly felt, unable to get through that little sheet of metal and its stupid lock. After a few minutes of fruitless struggling, feeling my mother’s and Dif’s eyes on me, I slammed the screwdriver down on the metal desk next to me with a resonant bang.