Alcatraz Versus the Scrivener's Bones

He met my eyes, then poked his stick into the very center of the circle. “There are others who argue that the Breaking Talent is much more. It seems to be able to do things that affect all four areas. Legends say that one of your ancestors—one of only two others to have this Talent—broke time and space together, forming a little bubble where nothing aged.

“Other records speak of breakings equally marvelous. Breakings that change people’s memory or their abilities. What is it to ‘break’ something? What can you change? How far can the Talent go?”

He raised his stick, pointing at me. “Either way, kid, that’s why it’s so hard for you to control. To be honest, even after centuries of studying them, we really don’t understand the Talents. I don’t know that we ever will, though your father was very keen on trying.”

Kaz stood up, dusting off his hands. “And that’s why he came here, I guess.”

“How do you know so much?” I asked.

Kaz raised an eyebrow. “What? You think I spend all my time making up witty lists and getting lost on my way to the bathroom? I have a job, kid.”

“Lord Kazan’s a scholar,” Bastille said. “Focusing on arcane theory.”

“Great,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Another professor.” After Grandpa Smedry, Sing, and Quentin, I was half convinced that everyone who lived in the Free Kingdoms was one kind of academic or another.

Kaz shrugged. “It’s a Smedry trait, kid. We tend to be very interested in information. Either way, your father was the real genius—I’m just a humble philosopher. Bastille, how’s the pathway up ahead look?”

“Clean,” she said. “No tripwires that I found.”

“Great,” he said.

“You actually seem a bit disappointed.”

Kaz shrugged. “Traps are interesting. They’re always a surprise, kind of like presents on your birthday.”

“Except these presents might decapitate you,” Bastille said flatly.

“All part of the fun, Bastille.”

She sighed, shooting me a glance over her sunglasses. Smedrys, it seemed to say. All the same.

I smiled at her, and nodded for us to get moving. Kaz took the lead. As we walked, I noticed that a couple of Curators were busy copying down Kaz’s drawing. I turned away, then jumped as I found a Curator hanging beside me.

“The Incarna knew about Smedry Talents,” the thing whispered. “We have a book here, one of theirs, written millennia ago. It explains exactly where the Talents first came from. We have one of only two copies that still exist.”

It hovered closer.

“You can have it,” the creature whispered. “Check it out, if you wish.”

I snorted. “I’m not that curious. I’d be a fool to give you my soul for information I could never use.”

“Ah, but maybe you could use it,” the Curator said. “What could you accomplish if you understood your Talent, young Smedry? Would you perhaps have enough skill to gain your freedom from us? Get your soul back? Break out of our prison…”

This gave me pause. It made a twisted, frightening sense. Maybe I could trade my soul away, then learn how to free myself using the book I gained. “It’s possible, then?” I asked. “Someone could break free after having been turned into a Curator?”

“Anything is possible,” the creature whispered, focusing its burning sockets on me. “Why don’t you try? You could learn so much. Things people haven’t known for millennia…”

It is a testament to the subtle trickery of the Curators that I honestly thought, for just a moment, about trading my soul for a book on arcane theory.

And then I came to my senses. I couldn’t even control my Talent as it was. What made me think that I, of all people, would be able to use it to outsmart a group as ancient and powerful as the Curators of Alexandria?

I chuckled and shook my head, causing the Curator to back away in obvious displeasure. I hurried my pace, catching up with the others. Kaz walked in front, leading us as he had before, letting his Talent lose us and carry us toward Australia. Theoretically.

Indeed, as I walked, I swore that I could see the stacks of scrolls changing around us. It wasn’t that they transformed or anything—yet if I glanced at a stack, then turned away, then glanced back, I couldn’t tell if it was actually the same one or not. Kaz’s Talent was carrying us through the corridors without our being able to feel the change.

Something occurred to me. “Kaz?”

The short man looked back, raising an eyebrow.

“So … your Talent has lost us, right?”

“Yup,” he said.

“As we walk, we’re moving through the library, hopping to different points, even though we feel like we’re just walking down a corridor.”

“You’ve got it, kid. I’ve got to tell you—you’re smarter than you look.”

I frowned. “So, what exactly was the purpose of having Bastille scout ahead? Didn’t we leave that corridor behind the moment you turned on your Talent?”

Kaz froze.

At that moment, I heard something click beneath me. I looked down with shock to see that I’d stepped directly onto a tripwire.

“Ah, wingnuts,” Kaz swore.

Chapter 11