“Alcatraz?” Sing asked nervously. “Are you certain this is wise?” Bastille, however, stood up. She walked toward the front of the cell.
I threw again.
“Stop that!” the Librarian said, stepping forward, raising his fists.
I threw a fifth piece of wood, hitting him in the chest.
“All right,” the Librarian said, reaching down to unsheathe his sword. “What do you think of this?” He stuck the sword forward, apparently intending to force me back with it.
Bastille, however, moved more quickly. I watched with shock as she grabbed the blade of the sword, somehow managing to keep from cutting herself as she yanked on it. This threw the Librarian off balance, and he stumbled toward the cell, still holding on to his weapon.
Bastille snapped forward, reaching between the bars and grabbing the Librarian guard by the hair. Then she yanked the man’s head down toward her, slamming it against the glass bars.
The sword clanged to the ground. The guard’s unconscious body followed a second later. Bastille knelt down, grabbing the guard’s arm and pulling him up against the cell bars. Then she began fishing around in his pockets. “All right, Smedry,” she admitted, “that was well done.”
“Uh, no problem,” I said. “You … took him down pretty smoothly.”
Bastille shrugged, pulling something out of the man’s pocket—a glass sphere. “He’s just a Librarian thug.”
“No match for a trained Knight of Crystallia,” Sing agreed. “Yes, that was indeed quite clever, Alcatraz. How did you know he’d lose his temper and pull out the sword?”
“Actually,” I said, “I was trying to get him to throw something at me.”
Bastille frowned. “What good would that do?”
“I figured it would engage my Talent if he tried to hurt me.”
Sing rubbed his chin. “That would probably have broken the thing he threw at you. But … how was that going to get us out of the cell?”
I paused. “I hadn’t exactly gotten that far yet.”
Bastille placed the glass sphere against the lock. It clicked; the door swung open.
“Either way,” she said, “we’re out.” She glanced at me, and I could see something in her eyes. Relief, even a bit of gratitude. It wasn’t an apology—but from Bastille, it was virtually the same thing. I took it for what it was worth.
Bastille left the cell and stooped down beside the unconscious Librarian. She pulled off his sunglasses, removed the tape—which was apparently there just for show—then slipped the glasses on her own face. After that, she grabbed the guard by one arm and pulled him into the cell. She quickly patted him down, pulling out a wallet and a dagger as Sing and I left the cell. Then she closed the door, using the glass sphere to lock it again.
She grinned and held up the sphere to me. “Would you mind?”
I smiled as well, then reached out with one finger and touched the sphere. It shattered.
She dug in the wallet for a moment. “Nothing useful in here,” she noted. “Except maybe this.” She pulled out a small card.
“A library card?” I asked.
“What else?” she said. I took it from her fingers, turning it over.
“Hey, they’re gone,” Sing said. He was peeking into the room beside the dungeon, the one where Grandpa Smedry, Ms. Fletcher, and the Dark Oculator had gone.
Bastille and I joined him. The room was indeed empty, except for our possessions, which had been carefully set out on a table.
“Thank the First Sands,” Bastille said with relief, tossing aside the guard’s sword in favor of her handbag. “I was worried that I’d be stuck with those common weapons. I’d almost rather have had some guns.”
“Now, that’s not very nice,” Sing said, waddling forward to inspect his guns, which sat on the table beside the gym bag.
I joined the two of them at the table as Bastille replaced her silver jacket. “There, Smedry,” she said. My three pairs of glasses sat on the table. I grabbed the Oculator’s Lenses eagerly, slipping them on.
Of course, nothing really changed. And yet it did. Even though I wasn’t used to wearing glasses, I found myself comforted to feel their weight on my face. I grabbed the other two pairs, the Firebringer’s Lenses still inside their small pouch.
“We have to move quickly,” Bastille said.
Sing nodded, checking the clip on a handgun. He tucked several Uzis into the front of his kimono belt, threw on four separate handgun holsters, then strapped the shotgun onto his back. He soon looked like some bizarre fat Rambo samurai.
“We have to find the room where they took your grandfather,” Bastille said.
“No problem,” I said, slipping off my Oculator’s Lenses, then putting on the Tracker’s Lenses. Though Blackburn’s footprints had disappeared, Grandpa Smedry’s prints blazed a fiery white, still present. They led out the door on the far side of the room. Ms. Fletcher’s diverged from them, heading in a different direction.
We’ll have to worry about her later, I thought, nodding toward the other two. Sing slung the gym bag over his shoulder—it was still filled with ammunition—and we set off, quickly following Grandpa Smedry’s footprints.
And so, I managed to escape from my first dungeon. Determination can actually take you quite far—though, admittedly, you sometimes have to rely on the thirteen-year-old girl to knock out the guards.
Chapter
14
Yes, you’re very clever. You noticed a problem.
In the last chapter, Sing, Bastille, and I escaped from prison, then immediately rushed off to save Grandpa Smedry. But, of course, Grandpa Smedry was being tortured by the very same man who had captured Sing and Bastille and me in the first place.
That meant we were in vaguely the same position as before. How did we intend to defeat a master Oculator—a dark, power
ful man with more experience than all of us combined? Well, the answer is simple.
While imprisoned, we had gained a newfound wisdom. We came to a greater understanding of the world around us and of our place in it. We gained insight regarding our …
Oh, all right. None of us paused to think about what we were doing. In our defense, we were a little bit flustered at the time. Plus, two of us were Smedrys.
That ought to explain it.
“This way,” I said, pointing down another castlelike corridor, following Grandpa Smedry’s footprints. And as we ran, something occurred to me. (No, not the fact that we were running after the man who had so easily captured us previously. Something else.)
“These corridors look familiar,” I said.
“That’s because all the corridors in this place look the same,” Bastille said.
“No,” I said. “It’s not just that. That lantern bracket looks like a cantaloupe.”
“They’re all designed to look like one fruit or another,” Bastille said.
“And we’ve passed this one before,” I said.
“You think we’re going in circles?” Bastille asked.
“No,” I said. “I think we passed it while chasing down Blackburn that first time. That’s the lantern I saw that made me ask you about electric lights. That means—”
Sing tripped.
I stood for a brief moment. Then I dove for the ground. Sing didn’t even try to keep his balance, and he toppled like a felled tree. Bastille also threw herself down with a vengeance, as if determined to get to the floor first. All three of us hit, dropping as fast as a group of pathological martyrs at a grenade testing ground.
Nothing happened.
“Well?” I asked, glancing around.
“I don’t see anything,” Bastille whispered. “Sing?”
“I think I bruised something,” he muttered, rubbing his side. “One of these pistols jammed me in the tummy!”
I snorted quietly. “Be glad it didn’t go off. Now, why did you trip?”
“Because my foot hit something,” Sing said. “That’s usually how it works, Alcatraz.”