Alcatraz Versus the Scrivener's Bones

“Just what I said,” Bastille whispered. “They’re part Alivened. Twisted half human, half monster.”

I shivered. We’d fought a couple of Alivened in the downtown library. Those were made of wadded-up pieces of paper, but they’d been far more dangerous than that could possibly sound. It was fighting them that lost Bastille her sword.

Alivening things—bringing inanimate objects to life with Oculatory power—is a very evil art. It requires the Oculator to give up some of his or her own humanity.

“The Scrivener’s Bones usually work on commission,” Bastille said. “So that means another Librarian hired it.”

My mother, was my immediate thought. She’s the one who hired him. I avoided thinking about her, since doing so tended to make me sick, and there’s no use being sick unless you can get out of school for it.

“He used Lenses,” I said. “So this Scrivener’s Bone is an Oculator?”

“Not likely,” Bastille said.

“Then how?”

“There’s a way to make a Lens that anyone can use,” she whispered very quietly.

“There is?” I asked. “Well, why in the world don’t we have more of those?”

Bastille glanced to the side. “Because, idiot,” she hissed. “You have to sacrifice an Oculator and use his blood to forge one.”

“Oh,” I said.

“He was probably using a bloodforged Lens,” she said, “hooked somehow into the cockpit glass so that it could fire out at us. That sounds like something the Scrivener’s Bones would do. They like mixing Oculatory powers with Hushlander technology.”

This talk of bloodforged Lenses should mean something to you. You may finally understand why I ended up finding my way to an altar, about to get sacrificed. What Bastille neglected to mention was that the power of the Oculator who was killed had a direct effect on how powerful the bloodforged Lens was. The more powerful the Oculator, the more awesome the Lens.

And I, as you might have realized, was very, very powerful.

Bastille left to cut down more branches. I sat quietly. It was probably only in my head, but I thought I could feel something off in the distance. That same dark sense I’d felt while escaping from the airfield and fighting the jet.

That’s silly, I told myself, shivering. We’ve traveled hundreds of miles using Kaz’s Talent. Even if that Scrivener’s Bone did survive, it would take him days to get here.

So I assumed.

* * *

A short time later I lay beneath a canopy of fronds, my black sneakers off and wrapped in my jacket to form a pillow. The others dozed, and I tried to do likewise. Yet I couldn’t stop thinking about what I’d been told.

It seemed like it all must be related somehow. The way the Lenses worked. Smedry Talents. The fact that the blood of an Oculator could make a Lens that worked for anyone. The connection between silimatic energy and Oculatory energy.

All connected. But it was too much for me to figure out, considering the fact that I was just a fish. So I went to sleep.

Which is pretty hard to do when you don’t have eyelids.

Chapter 8

All right, so I’m not a fish. I admit it. What? Figured that on your own, did you? You’re so clever. What gave it away? The fact that I’m writing books, the fact that I don’t have fins, or the fact that I’m a downright despicable liar?

Anyway, there was a purpose in that little exercise—one beyond my standard purpose. (Which is, of course, to annoy you.) I wanted to prove something. In the last chapter, I told you that I was a fish—but I also mentioned that I had black sneakers. Do you remember?

Here’s the thing. That was a lie; I didn’t have black sneakers. I have never owned a pair of black shoes. I was wearing white shoes; I told you about them back in Chapter One.

Why does it matter? Let’s talk about something called misdirection.

In the last chapter, I told a big lie, then made you focus on it so much that you ignored the smaller lie. I said I was a fish. Then I mentioned my black shoes in passing, so you didn’t pay attention to them.

People use this strategy all the time. They drive fancy cars to distract others from their having a small house. They wear bright clothing to distract from their being—unfortunately—rather bland people. They talk really loudly to distract you from their having nothing to say.

This is what has happened to me. Everywhere I go in the Free Kingdoms, people are always excited to congratulate me, praise me, or ask for my blessing. They’re all looking at the fish. They’re so focused on the big thing—that I supposedly saved the world from the Librarians—that they completely ignore the facts. They don’t see who I am, or what my presumed heroism cost.

So that’s why I’m writing my autobiography. I want to teach you to ignore the fish and pay attention to the shoes. Fish and shoes. Remember that.

“Alcatraz!” a voice called, waking me. I opened bleary eyes, then sat up.