He toppled to the ground before me. At that instant, a book in the pile beside me exploded, throwing up scraps of paper and glass. The music stopped.
Folsom groaned. The trip left him kneeling right in front of me, confettilike scraps of paper falling around us. The beast within me quieted, pulling back inside, and all fell still.
When I’d been young, I’d thought of my Talent as a curse. Now I’d begun thinking of it as a kind of wild super power. This was the first time, however, that I thought of it as something foreign inside me.
Something alive.
“That was incredible!” said one of the soldiers. I looked up and saw the soldiers regarding me with awe. Himalaya seemed stunned. The prince stood with his arms folded, smiling in contentment at finally getting to witness a battle.
“I saw it,” one of the soldiers whispered, “like a wave of power, pulsing out of you, Lord Smedry. It stopped even another Talent.”
It felt good to be admired. It made me feel like a leader. Like a hero. “See to your friends,” I said, pointing at the fallen soldiers. “Give me a report on the wounded.” I reached down, helping Folsom to his feet.
He looked at his shoes in shame, as Himalaya walked over to comfort him. “Well, I give myself nine out of ten points for being an idiot,” he said. “I can’t believe I let that happen. I should be able to control it!”
“I know how hard it is,” I said. “Trust me. It wasn’t your fault.”
Prince Rikers walked over to join us, his blue robes swishing. “That was wonderful,” he said. “Though it’s kind of sad how the book turned out.”
“I’m heartbroken,” I said flatly, glancing about for Bastille. Where was she?
“Oh, it’s all right,” Rikers said, reaching into his pocket. “They have the sequel here too!” He pulled out a book and moved to open the cover.
“Don’t you dare!” I snapped, grabbing his arm.
“Oh,” he said. “Yeah, probably a bad idea.” He glanced at my grip on his arm. “You know, you remind me a lot of my sister. I thought you’d be a little less uptight.”
“I’m not uptight,” I snapped. “I’m annoyed. There’s a difference. Himalaya, how’s the sorting going?”
“Uh, maybe halfway done,” she said. Indeed, the mountains of books were quickly becoming large stacks, like walls. A much smaller stack was particularly interesting to me—it contained books in the Forgotten Language.
There were only four so far, but it was amazing to me that we’d managed to find them among all the other books. I walked over to the stack, fishing in my jacket pocket for my pair of Translator’s Lenses.
I swapped them on in place of my Oculator’s Lenses. I almost forgot that I was wearing those. They were starting to feel natural to me, I guess. With the Translator’s Lenses on, I could read the titles of the books.
One appeared to be some kind of philosophical work on the nature of laws and justice. Interesting, but I couldn’t see it being important enough for my mother to risk so much in order to get.
The other three books were unimpressive. A manual on building chariots, a ledger talking about the number of chickens a particular merchant traded in Athens, and a cookbook. (Hey, I guess even ancient, all-powerful lost societies needed help baking cookies.)
I checked with the soldiers and was relieved to find that none of them were seriously wounded. Folsom had knocked out no fewer than six, and some others had broken several limbs. The wounded left for the infirmary and the others returned to helping Himalaya. None of them had seen Bastille.
I wandered through what was quickly becoming a maze of enormous book stacks. Maybe Bastille was looking for signs of the diggers breaking into the room. The scraping sounds had been coming from the southeast corner, but when I neared I couldn’t hear them anymore. Had my mother realized we were on to her? With that sound gone, I could hear something else.
Whispering.
Curious and a little creeped out, I walked in the direction of the sound. I turned a corner around a wall of books, and found a little dead-end hollow in the maze.
Bastille lay there, curled up on the cold glass floor, whispering to herself and shivering. I cursed, rushing over to kneel beside her. “Bastille?”
She curled up a little bit further. Her Warrior’s Lenses were off, clutched in her hand. I could see a haunted cast to her eyes. A sense of loss, of sorrow, of having had something deep and tender ripped from her, never to be returned.
I felt powerless. Had she been hurt? She shivered and moved, then looked up at me, her eyes focusing. She seemed to realize for the first time that I was there.
She immediately pushed away from me and sat up. Then she sighed and wrapped her arms around her knees, bowing her head between them. “Why is it that you always see me like this?” she asked quietly. “I’m strong, I really am.”
“I know you are,” I said, feeling awkward and embarrassed.
We remained like that for a time, Bastille unresponsive, me feeling like a complete idiot, even though I wasn’t sure what I’d done wrong. (Note to all the young men reading this: Get used to that.)
“So…” I said. “Er … you’re still having trouble with that severing thing?”
She looked up, eyes red like they’d been scratched with sandpaper. “It’s like…” she said in a quiet voice. “It’s like I used to have memories. Fond ones of places I loved, of people I knew. Only now they’re gone. I can feel the place where they were, and it’s a hole ripped open inside of me.”
“The Mindstone is that important?” I asked. It was a dumb thing to say, but I felt I should say something.
“It connects all of the Knights of Crystallia,” she whispered. “It strengthens us, gives us comfort. By it, we all share a measure of who we are.”
“I should have shattered the swords of those idiots who did this to you,” I growled.
Bastille shivered, holding her arms close. “I’ll get reconnected eventually, so I should probably tell you not to be so angry. They’re good people and don’t deserve your scorn. But honestly, I’m having trouble feeling sympathy for them right now.” She smiled wanly.
I tried to smile back, but it was hard. “Someone wanted this to happen to you, Bastille. They set you up.”
“Maybe,” Bastille said, sighing. It appeared that her episode was over, though it had left her weakened even further.
“Maybe?” I repeated.
“I don’t know, Smedry,” she said. “Maybe nobody set me up. Maybe I really did just get promoted too quickly, and really did fail on my own. Maybe … maybe there is no grand conspiracy against me.”
“I guess you could be right,” I said.
You, of course, don’t believe that. I mean, when is there not some grand conspiracy? This entire series is about a secret cult of evil Librarians who rule the world, for the Sands’ sake.
“Alcatraz?” a voice called. Sing wandered around the corner a moment later. “Himalaya found another book in the Forgotten Language. Figured you would want to look at it.”
I glanced at Bastille; she waved me away. “What, you think I need to be babied?” she snapped. “Go. I’ll be there in a moment.”
I hesitated, but followed Sing around a few walls of books to the center of the room. The prince sat, looking bored, on what appeared to be a throne made of books. (I’m still not sure who he got to make it for him.) Folsom was directing the moving of stacks; Himalaya was still sorting, with no sign of slowing down.