“And?”
“He’s a true Smedry. Just like your grandfather. We don’t tend to think things through. Things like charging into danger, like infiltrating Libraries, or…”
“Like reading a book that will cost you your soul?”
Kaz looked away. “I don’t think he’d be that stupid. He’d get the knowledge he wanted, but he’d never be able to share it or use it. Even Attica wouldn’t get that hungry for answers.”
The comment begged another question. If he didn’t come for a book, then why visit? I thought.
Draulin and Bastille arrived a few moments later. Now, you might have noticed something important. Look up the name Draulin on your favorite search engine. You won’t get many results, and the ones you do get will probably be typos, not prisons. (Though, the two are related in that they are both things I tend to be affiliated with far too often.) Either way, there’s no prison named Draulin, though there is one named Bastille.
(That last bit about the names – that is foreshadowing. So don’t say I never give you anything.)
“Perimeter is secure,” Draulin said. “No guards.”
“There never are,” Kaz said, glancing back at the stairs. “I’ve been here half a dozen times – mostly due to getting lost – though I’ve never gone it. The Curators don’t guard the place. They don’t need to – anyone who tries to steal even a single book will automatically lose their soul, whether they know about the rules or not.”
I shivered.
“We should camp here,” Draulin said, glancing over at the rising sun. “Most of us didn’t get any sleep last night, and we shouldn’t go down into the Library without our wits about is.”
“Probably a good idea,” Kaz said, yawning. “Plus, we don’t really know if we need to go in. Al, you said my father visited this place. Did he go in?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I couldn’t tell for certain.”
“Try the Lenses again,” Australia said, nodding encouragingly – sometimes that appeared to be one of her favorite gestures.
I was still wearing the Courier’s Lenses; as before, I tried to contact my grandfather. All I received was a low buzz and a kind of wavering fuzz in my vision. “I’m trying,” I said. “All I get is a blurry fuzz. Anyone know what that means?”
I glanced at Australia. She shrugged – for an Oculator, she sure didn’t seem to know much. Then, I was one too, and I knew even less, so it was a little hard to judge.
“Don’t ask me,” Kaz said. “That ability skipped me, fortunately.
I looked over at Bastille.
“Don’t look at her,” Draulin said. “Bastille is a squire of Crystallia, not an Oculator.”
I caught Bastille’s eyes. She glanced at her mother.
“I command her to speak,” I said.
“It means there’s interference of some sort,” Bastille said quickly. “Courier’s Lenses are temperamental, and certain kinds of glass can block them. I’ll bet the Library down there has precautions to stop people from grabbing a book, then – before their soul is taken – reading its contents off to someone listening via Lenses.”
“Thanks, Bastille,” I said. “You know, you’re kind of useful to have around sometimes.”
She smiled but the caught sight of Draulin looking at her with displeasure, and stiffened.
“So, do we camp?” Kaz asked.
I realized everyone was looking at me. “Uh, sure.”
Draulin nodded, then moved over to some kind of fern-type plant and began to cut off fronds to make some shelter. It was already getting warm, but I guess that was to be expected, what with us being in Egypt and all.
I went to help Australia rifle through the packs, getting out some foodstuffs. My stomach growled as we worked; I hadn’t eaten since the stale chips in the airport. “So,” I said. “You’re an Oculator?”
Australia flushed. “Well, not a very good one, you know. I can never really figure out how the Lenses are supposed to work.”
I chuckled. “I can’t either.”
That only seemed to make her more embarrassed.
“What?” I asked.
She smiled in her perky way. “Nothing. I just, well. You’re a natural, Alcatraz. I’ve tried to use Courier’s Lenses a dozen times before, and you saw how poorly I managed when contacting you at the airport.”
“I think you did all right,” I said. “Saved my skin.”
“I suppose,” she said, looking down.
“Don’t you have any Oculator’s Lenses?” I asked, noticing for the first time that she wasn’t wearing any Lenses. I had put back on my Oculator’s Lenses after trying to contact Grandpa Smedry.
She flushed, then rifled through her pocket, eventually pulling out a pair with far more stylish frames than mine. She slid them on. “I… don’t really like how they look.”
“They’re great,” I said. “Look, Grandpa Smedry told me that I have to wear mine a lot to get used to them. Maybe you just need more practice.’
“I’ve had, like, ten years.”
“And how much of that did you spend wearing the Lenses?”
She thought for a moment. “Not much, I guess. Anyway, since you’re here, I guess my being an Oculator isn’t all that important.” She smiled, but I could sense something else. She seemed good at hiding things beneath her bubbly exterior.
“I don’t know about that,” I said, cutting slices of bread. “I’m certainly glad there’s another Oculator with us – especially if we have to go down in that Library.”
“Why?” she said. “You’re far better with Lenses than I am.”
“And if we get separated?” I asked. “You could use the Courier’s Lenses to contact me. Having two Oculators is never a bad thing, I’ve found.”
“But… the Courier’s Lenses won’t work down there,” she said. “That’s what we just discovered.”
She’s right, I realized, flushing. Then, something occurred to me. I reached into one of my pockets, pulling out a pair of Lenses. “Here, try these,” I said. They were yellow tinted.
She took them hesitantly, then tried them on. She blinked. “Hey!” she said. “I can see footprints.”
“Tracker’s Lenses,” I said. “Grandpa Smedry loaned them to me. With these, you can retrace your steps back to the entrance if you get lost – or even find me by following my footprints.”
Australia smiled broadly. “I’ve never tried a pair of these before. I can’t believe they work so well!”
I didn’t mention that Grandpa Smedry had said they were among the most simple of Lenses to use. “That’s great,” I
said. “Maybe you’ve just always tried the wrong types of Lenses. Best to begin with the ones that work. You can borrow those.”
“Thanks!” She gave me an unexpected hug, then hopped to her feet to go fetch the other pack. Smiling, I watched her go.
“You’re good at that,” a voice said.
I turned to find Bastille standing a short distance away. She’d cut down several long branches and was in the process of dragging them back to her mother.
“What?” I asked.
“You’re good,” she said. “With people, I mean.”
I shrugged. “It’s nothing.”
“No,” Bastille said. “You really made her feel better. Something had been bothering her since you arrived, but now she seems back to her old self. You kind of have a leader’s flair about you, Smedry.”
It makes sense, if you think about it. I had spent my entire childhood learning how to shove people away from me. I’d learned just the right buttons to push, just the right things to break, to make them hate me. Now, those same skills were coming in handy helping people feel good, rather than making them hate me.
I should have realized the trouble I was getting myself into. There’s nothing worse than having people look up to you – because the more they expect, the worse you feel when you fail them. Take my advice. You don’t want to be the one in charge. Becoming a leader is, in a way, like falling off a cliff. It feels like a lot of fun at first.
Then it stops being fun. Really, really fast.
Bastille hauled the branches over to her mother, who was making a lean-to. Then, Bastille sat down beside me and took out one of our water bottles to get a drink. The water level in it didn’t seem to go down at all as she gulped.
Neat, I thought.
“There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you,” I said.
She wiped her brow. “What?”
“That jet that was chasing us,” I said. “It fired a Frostbringer’s Lens. I thought only Oculators could activate things like that.”
She shrugged.
“Bastille,” I said, eyeing her.
“You saw my mother,” she grumbled. “I’m not supposed to talk about things like that.”