The pig started to move again, tromping down the street. The pedestrians apparently knew to stay out of its way, and despite its large size, it made very good time. I sat down on one of the regal red couches, and Bastille sat next to me, exhaling and closing her eyes.
"Does it hurt?" I asked.
She shrugged. She's good at the tough-girl act, but I could tell that the severing still bothered her deeply.
"Why do we need Folsom?" she asked, eyes still closed, obviously trying to distract me from asking after her.
"He'll be with Himalaya," I said, then realized that Bastille had never met the Librarian. "She's a Librarian who supposedly defected to our side six months back. I don't think she's to be trusted, though."
"Why?"
"Folsom stays suspiciously close to her," I said. "He rarely lets her out of his sight – she's really a Librarian spy."
"Great," Bastille said. “And we’re going to ask her for help?"
"She's our best bet," I said. "She is a fully trained Librarian – if anyone can sort through that mess in the Royal Archives –“
“Not a library!” Rikers called distantly from the front of the pig.
"– it will be a Librarian. Besides, maybe if she is a spy, she'll know what the Librarians are looking for and we can force it out of her."
"So, your brilliant plan is to go to someone you suspect of being our enemy, then bring her into the very place that the Librarians are trying to break into."
"Er . . .yes."
“Wonderful. Why do I feel that I'm going to end this ridiculous fiasco wishing I'd just given up my knighthood and become an accountant instead?"
I smiled. It felt good to have Bastille back. It was hard for me to feel too impressed by my own fame with her there pointing out the holes in my plans.
"You don't really mean that, do you?" I asked. “About quitting the knighthood?"
She sighed, opening her eyes. "No. As much as I hate to admit it, my mother was right. I'm not only good at this, but I enjoy it." She looked at me, meeting my eyes. "Somebody set me up, Alcatraz. I'm convinced of it. They wanted me to fail.”
"Your . . . mother was the one who voted most harshly against your reinstatement."
Bastille nodded, and I could see that she was thinking the same thing that I was.
"We have quite the parents, don't we?" I asked. “My father ignores me; my mother married him just to get his Talent."
Marry a Smedry, and you got a Talent. Apparently, it didn't matter if you were a Smedry by blood or by marriage: A Smedry was a Smedry. The only difference was that in the case of a marriage, the spouse got their husband's or wife's same Talent.
"My parents aren't like that," Bastille said fiercely. "They're good people. My father is one of the most respected and popular kings Nalhalla has ever known."
"Even if he is giving up on Mokia,” Sing said quietly from his seat across from us.
"He thinks he's doing the best thing," Bastille said. "How would you like to have to decide whether to end a war – and save thousands of lives – or keep fighting? He sees a chance for peace, and the people want peace."
“My people want peace," Sing said. "But we want freedom more."
Bastille fell silent. “Anyway,” she finally said, "assuming my mother was the one to set me up, I can see exactly why she'd do it. She worries about showing favoritism toward me. She feels she needs to be extra hard on me, which is why she'd send me on such a difficult mission. To see if I failed, and therefore needed to go back into training. But she does care for me. She just has strange ways of showing it."
I sat back, thinking about my own parents. Perhaps Bastille could come up with good motives for hers, but they were a noble king and a brave knight. What did I have? An egotistical rock-star scientist and an evil Librarian who even other Librarians didn't seem to like very much.
Attica and Shasta Smedry were not like Bastille's parents. My mother didn't care about me – she'd married only to get the Talent. And my father obviously didn’t want to spend any time with me.
No wonder I turned out like I did. There is a saying in the Free Kingdoms: “A cub's roar is an echo of the bear.” It's a little bit like one we use in the Hushlands: "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree." (It figures that the Librarian version would use apples instead of something cool, like bears.)
I'm not sure if I ever had a chance to be anything but the selfish jerk I became. Despite Grandpa Smedry's chastisement, I still longed for the fleeting satisfaction of fame. It had been really nice to hear people talk about how great I was.
My taste of fame sat in me like a corrupt seed, blackened and putrid, waiting to sprout forth slimy dark vines.
"Alcatraz?" Bastille asked, elbowing me.
I blinked, realizing that I'd zoned out. "Sorry," I mumbled.
She nodded to the side. Prince Rikers was approaching. "I called ahead, and Folsom isn't at the palace," he said.
"He isn't?" I asked, surprised.
"No, the servants said that he and a woman looked over the treaty, then left. But never fear! We can continue our quest, for the servant said that we could find Folsom in the Royal Gardens –“
"Not a park," Sing said. "Or, er, never mind."
“- across the street.”
"All right," I said. "What's he doing in the gardens?"
"Something terribly exciting and important, I'd guess," Rikers said. "Eldon, take notes!"
A servant in a scribe's robes appeared from a nearby room, as if from nowhere, with a notepad. "Yes, my lord," the man said, scribbling.
"This will make an excellent book," Rikers said, sitting down.
Bastille just rolled her eyes.
"So, wait," I said. "You called ahead? How'd you do that?"
"Communicator's Glass," Rikers said. "Lets you talk with someone across a distance."
Communicator's Glass. However, something about that bothered me. I reached into my pocket, pulling out my Lenses. I'd once had a pair of Lenses that let me communicate across a distance. I didn't have them anymore – I'd given them back to Grandpa Smedry. I did have the new set of Disguiser's Lenses, though. What about the power they gave me? If I was thinking about someone, I could make myself look like them. . . .
(By the way, yes, this is foreshadowing. However, you'll need to have read the previous two books in the series to figure out what's going on. So if you haven’t read them, then too bad for you!)
"Wait,” Bastille said, pointing at the Truthfinder's Lens in my hand. "Is that the one you found in the Library of Alexandria?"
"Yeah. Grandpa figured out that it's a Truthfinder's Lens."
She perked up. "Really? Do you know how rare those are?"
“Well . . . to be honest, I kind of wish that it could blow th
ings up."
Bastille rolled her eyes. "You wouldn't know a useful Lens if you cut your finger on it, Smedry."
She had a point. "You know a lot more about Lenses than I do, Bastille,” I admitted. "But I think there's something odd about all of this. Smedry Talents, the Oculator's Lenses, brightsand . . . it's all connected."
She eyed me. "What are you talking about?"
“Here, let me show you." I tucked my Lenses away, standing up and scanning the chamber, looking for a likely candidate. On one wall, there was a small shelf with some glass equipment on it. "Your Highness, what's that?"
Prince Rikers turned. “Ah! My new silimatic phonograph! Haven't hooked it up yet, though.”
"Perfect," I said, walking over and picking up the glass box; it was about the size of a briefcase.
"That won't work, Alcatraz," the prince said. “It needs a silimatic power plate or some brightsand to –“
I channeled power into the glass. Not breaking power from my Talent, but the same "power” I used to activate Lenses. Early on, I had simply needed to touch Lenses to power them; now I was learning to control myself so that I didn't activate them unintentionally.
Either way, the box started playing music – a peppy little symphony. It's a good thing Folsom wasn't there, otherwise he would have begun to “dance.”
"Hey, how'd you do that?" Prince Rikers asked.
“Amazing!"
Bastille regarded me quizzically. I set the music box down, and it continued to play for a time, powered by the charge I'd given it.