Alcatraz Versus the Scrivener's Bones

“Yeah, well, at least this time I won’t be the one who looks bad if you die. My mother’s the knight in charge of protecting you.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“Plus,” she said, “maybe you’ll be able to do something. Who knows. You’ve gotten lucky in the past.”

I smiled, and somehow the vote of confidence—such as it was—bolstered me. I glanced up. “How do I get out there?”

“Your feet stick to the walls, stupid.”

“Oh, right,” I said. Taking a deep breath, I stepped up onto the side of the wall. It was easier than I’d thought it would be—silimatic technicians say that Grappler’s Glass works to hold your entire body in place, not just your feet. Either way, I found it rather easy (if a little disorienting) to walk up the side of the wall and out onto the top of Dragonaut.

Let’s talk about air. You see, air is a really nifty thing. It lets us make cool sounds with our mouths, it carries smells from one person to another, and without it nobody would be able to play air guitar. Oh, and there is that other thing it does: It lets us breathe, allowing all animal life to exist on the planet. Great stuff, air.

The thing about air is, you don’t really think about it until (a) you don’t have enough or (b) you have way too much of it. That second one is particularly nasty when you get hit in the face by a bunch of it going somewhere in the neighborhood of three hundred miles an hour.

The wind buffeted me backward, and only the Grappler’s Glass on my feet kept me upright. Even with it, I bent backward precariously, like some gravity-defying dancer in a music video. I’d have felt kind of cool about that if I hadn’t been terrified for my life.

Bastille must have seen my predicament, for she rushed toward the cockpit. I’m still not sure how she persuaded Australia to slow the ship—by all accounts, that should have been a very stupid thing to do. Still, the wind lessened to a slightly manageable speed, and I was able to clomp my way across the top of the ship toward Draulin.

Massive wings beat beside me, and the dragon’s snake body rolled. Each step was sure though. I passed beneath the stars and the moon, the cloud cover glowing beneath us. I arrived near the front of the vehicle just as Draulin blocked another blast of Frostbringer’s ray. As I grew closer, she spun toward me.

“Lord Smedry?” she asked, voice muffled by both the wind and her helmet. “What in the name of the first sands are you doing here?”

“I’ve come to help!” I yelled above the howl of wind.

She seemed dumbfounded. The jet shot past in the night sky, rounding for another attack.

“Go back!” she said, waving with an armored hand.

“I’m an Oculator,” I said, pointing to my Lenses. “I can stop the Frostbringer’s ray.”

It was true. An Oculator can use his Oculator’s Lenses to counter an enemy’s attack. I’d seen my grandfather do it when dueling Blackburn. I’d never tried it myself, but I figured it couldn’t be that hard.

I was completely wrong, of course. It happens to the best of us at times.

Draulin cursed, running across the dragon’s back to block another blast. The ship rolled, nearly making me sick, and I was suddenly struck by how high up I was. I crouched down, holding my stomach, waiting for the world to orient itself again. When it did, Draulin was standing beside me.

“Go back down!” she yelled. “You can be of no help here!”

“I—”

“Idiot!” she yelled. “You’re going to get us killed!”

I fell silent, the wind tousling my hair. I felt shocked to be treated so, but it was probably no more than I deserved. I turned away, clomping back toward the hatch, embarrassed.

To the side, the jet fired a missile. The glass on its cockpit fired another Frostbringer’s ray.

And Dragonaut didn’t dodge.

I spun toward the cockpit and could just barely see Australia slumped over her control panel, dazed. Bastille was trying to slap her awake—she’s particularly good at anything that requires slapping—and Kaz was furiously trying to make the ship respond.

We lurched, but the wrong way. Draulin cried out, barely slicing her sword through the icy beam as she stumbled. She vaporized it, but the missile continued on, directly toward us.

Directly toward me.

I’ve talked about the uneasy truce my Talent and I have. Neither of us is really ever in control. I can usually break things if I really want to, but rarely in exactly the way I want. And my Talent often breaks things when I don’t want it to.

What I lack in control, I make up for in power. I watched that missile coming, saw its glass length reflect the starlight, and saw the trail of smoke leading back to the fighter behind.

I stared at my reflection in oncoming death. Then I raised my hand and released my Talent.

The missile shattered, shards of glass spraying from it, twinkling and spinning into the midnight air. Then those shards exploded, vaporizing to powdered dust that sprayed around me, missing me by several inches on each side.