Alcatraz Versus the Knights of Crystallia

The door behind us broke open, and I turned to see a group of muscular Librarians force their way into the stairwell. I could just barely make out Bastille tensing for combat, and Folsom moved to open the novel with the music.

“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 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 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 bands 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 band 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.