Alcatraz Versus the Scrivener's Bones

With that, Kaz pulled out a machete and began to cut his way through the undergrowth. I glanced back at the beach, bidding silent farewell to the translucent dragon, cracked from the landing, its body slowly being buried in sand from the rising tide. One wing still hung up in the air, as if in defiance of its death.

“You were the most majestic thing I’d ever seen,” I whispered. “Rest well.” A little melodramatic, true, but it felt appropriate. Then I quickly rushed after the others, careful not to lose sight of Draulin, who walked in the rear.

The jungle was thick, and the canopy overhead made the darkness near absolute. Draulin pulled an antiquated-looking lantern from her pack, then tapped it with one finger. It started to glow, the flame coming to life without needing a match. Even with it, however, it felt creepy to be traveling through a dense jungle in the middle of the night.

In order to still my nerves, I moved to walk by Bastille. She, however, didn’t want to talk. I eventually worked my way up through the column until I was behind Kaz. I figured that he and I had started off on the wrong foot, and I hoped I could patch things up a bit.

Those of you who recall the events of the first book will realize that this was quite a change in me. For most of my life, I’d been abandoned by family after family. It was tough to blame them, however, since I’d spent my childhood breaking everything in sight. I’d gone on such a rampage that I would have made the proverbial bull in the proverbial china shop look unproverbially good by proverbial comparison. (Personally, I don’t even know how he’d fit through the door. Proverbially.)

Regardless, I had grown into the habit of pushing people away as soon as I got to know them—abandoning them before they could abandon me. It had been tough to realize what I was doing, but I was already starting to change.

Kaz was my uncle. My father’s brother. For a kid who had spent most of his life thinking that he had no living relatives, having Kaz think I was a fool was a big deal. I wanted desperately to show him that I was capable.

Kaz glanced at me as he chopped at the foliage—though he only tended to cut away things up to his own height of four feet, leaving the rest of us to get branches in our faces. “Well?” he asked.

“I wanted to apologize for that whole midget thing.”

He shrugged.

“It’s just that…” I said. “Well, I figured with all of the magic and stuff they have in the Free Kingdoms, they would have been able to cure dwarfism by now.”

“They haven’t been able to cure stupidity either,” he said. “So I guess we won’t be able to help you.”

I blushed. “I … didn’t mean…”

Kaz chuckled, slicing off a couple of fronds. “Look, it’s all right. I’m used to this. But I want you to understand that I don’t need to be cured.”

“But…” I said, trying hard to express what I felt without being offensive, “isn’t being short like you a genetic disease?”

“Genetic, yes,” Kaz said. “But is it a disease just because it’s different? I mean, you’re an Oculator; that’s genetic too. Would you like to be cured?”

“That’s different,” I said.

“Is it?”

I paused to think about it. “I don’t know,” I finally said. “But don’t you get tired of being short?”

“Don’t you get tired of being tall?”

“I…” It was tough to come up with an answer to that one. I really wasn’t all that tall—barely five feet, now that I’d launched into my teens. Still, I was tall compared with him.

“Now, personally,” Kaz continued, “I think you tall people are really missing out. Why, the entire world would be a better place if you were all shorter.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“You look doubtful,” Kaz said, smiling. “Obviously you need to be introduced to The List!”

“The List?”

From behind, I heard Australia sigh. “Don’t encourage him, Alcatraz.”

“Hush, you!” Kaz said, eyeing Australia and eliciting a bit of an eep from her. “The List is a time-tested and scientifically researched collection of facts that prove that short people are better off than tall ones.”

He glanced at me. “Confused?”

I nodded.

“Slowness of thought,” he said. “A common ailment of tall people. Reason number forty-seven: Tall people’s heads are in a thinner atmosphere than those of short people, so the tall people get less oxygen. That makes it so that their brains don’t work quite as well.”

With that, he chopped his way through the edge of the forest and walked out into a clearing. I stopped in the path, then glanced at Australia.

“We’re not sure if he’s serious or not,” she whispered. “But he really does keep that list of his.”

After getting a glare from Bastille for pausing for so long, I rushed out into the clearing with Kaz. I was surprised to see that the jungle broke a little farther out, giving us a view of …

“Paris?” I asked in shock. “That’s the Eiffel Tower!”

“Ah, is that what that is?” Kaz asked, scribbling something on a notepad. “Great! We’re back in the Hushlands. Not as badly lost as I thought.”

“But…” I said. “We were on another continent! How did we cross the ocean?”