Alcatraz Versus the Knights of Crystallia

I grabbed the pile of electrical cords off the ground and—pulling as hard as I could—yanked them out of their sockets in the containers of brightsand. Then I raced after my friends.

Bastille waited at the door that led into the archives room. “What’s that?” she said, pointing at the cords.

“Our only chance,” I replied, ducking into the room. She followed, then slammed the door—or, at least, what was left of it. It was pitch dark inside. I’d broken the lamps. I heard the breathing of my little group, shallow, worried.

“What now?” Sing whispered.

I held the cords in my hands. I touched the tips with my fingers, then closed my eyes. This was a big gamble. Sure, I’d been able to make the music box work, but this was something completely different.

I didn’t have time to doubt myself. The Librarians would be upon us in a few moments. I held those cords, held my breath, and activated them like I would a pair of Oculator’s Lenses.

Immediately, something drained from me. My strength was sapped away, and I felt a shock of exhaustion—as if my body had decided to run a marathon when I wasn’t looking. I dropped the cords, wobbling, and reached out to steady myself against Sing.

“You’re all dead, you know,” Fitzroy sputtered in the darkness; he was still held—I assumed—under Sing’s arm. “They’ll burst in here in a second and then you’re dead. What did you think? You’re trapped! Sandless idiots!”

I took a deep breath, righting myself. Then I pushed the door open.

The blonde Knight of Crystallia standing guard was still outside. “You all right?” she asked, peeking in. “What happened?” Behind her I could see the stone stairwell of the Royal Archives, still packed with soldiers.

“We’re back!” Sing said. “How…?”

“You powered the glass,” Bastille said, looking at me. “Like you did with Rikers’s silimatic music box. You initiated a swap!”

I nodded. At my feet, the cords to the Librarian machinery lay cut at the ends. Our swap had severed them where they’d poked through the door.

“Shattering Glass, Smedry!” Bastille said. “How in the name of the first Sands did you do that?”

“I don’t know,” I said, rushing out the doorway. “We can worry about it later. Right now, we’ve got to save Mokia.”

Chapter 20

Questions.

We’re at the end, and you probably have a few of them. If you’ve been paying attention closely, you probably have more than just “a few.”

You should probably have more than you do.

I’ve tried to be honest, as honest as I can be. I haven’t lied about anything important.

But some of the people in the story … well, they’re lying for certain.

No matter how much you think you know, there is always more to learn. It all has to do with Librarians, knights, and of course fish sticks. Enjoy this next part. I’ll see you in the epilogue.

“Aha!” I said, pulling not one but two pairs of Translator’s Lenses from Fitzroy’s jacket. The Dark Oculator lay tied up on the floor as we rode in the prince’s giant glass pig. I’d told my soldiers to get some sort of equipment and dig to the corner of the archives room and remove the glass there, so that the Librarians couldn’t swap the room back and steal any of the other books.

“I still don’t understand what happened,” Sing said, sitting nervously as our vehicle plodded toward the palace.

“Oculators can power glass,” I said. “Like Lenses.”

“Lenses are magic,” Sing said. “That Transporter’s Glass was technology.”

“The two are more similar than you think, Sing. In fact, I believe all of these powers are connected. Do you remember what you said when you and I were hiding down there a few moments ago? The thing about your sister?”

“Sure,” Sing said. “I mentioned that I wished she’d been there, because she could have imitated one of the Librarians.”

“Which I could do with these,” I said, holding up the pair of Disguiser’s Lenses that we’d retrieved from Fitzroy. “Sing, these work just like Australia’s Talent does. If she falls asleep thinking about somebody, she wakes up looking just like them. Well, if I wear these and concentrate, I can do the same thing.”

“What are you saying, Alcatraz?” Folsom asked.

“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “It just seems suspicious to me. I mean, look at your Talent. It makes you a better warrior when you hear music, right?”

He nodded.

“Well, what do Bastille’s Warrior’s Lenses do?” I said. “They make her a better fighter. My uncle Kaz’s Talent lets him transport people across great distances, which sounds an awful lot like what that Transporter’s Glass did.”

“Yes,” Sing said. “But what about your grandfather’s Talent? It lets him arrive late to things, and there aren’t Lenses that do that.”

“There are lots of types of glass we don’t know about,” I said. I picked up one of the rings of Inhibitor’s Glass, which we’d managed to get off our arms using a set of keys in Fitzroy’s pocket. “You thought these were mythical.”