Alcatraz Versus the Scrivener's Bones

I smiled back. “Yeah. Why is it that my best soul-searching moments always come when I’m trapped?”

“Sounds like you should be imprisoned more often.”

I nodded. Then I jumped as something floated out of the wall next to me. “Gak!” I said before I realized it was just a Curator.

“Here,” it said, dropping a leaf of paper to the ground.

“What’s this?” I asked, picking it up.

“Your book.”

It was the paper I’d written in the tomb, the inscription about the Dark Talent. That meant we’d been trapped for nearly an hour. Bastille was right. Kaz had probably already reached the center of the library.

The Curator floated away.

“Your mother,” I said, folding up the paper. “If she gets that crystal thing back, she’ll be all right?”

Bastille nodded.

“So, since we’re trapped here with no hope of rescue, do you mind telling me what that crystal was? You know, to help pass the time?”

Bastille snorted, then stood up and pulled aside her silvery hair. She turned around, and I could see a sparkling blue crystal set into the skin on the back of her neck. It was clearly visible above the collar of the black T-shirt she had tucked into the trousers of her militaristic uniform.

“Wow,” I said.

“Three kinds of crystals grow in Crystallia,” she said, letting her hair back down. “The first we turn into swords and daggers. The second become Fleshstones, which are what really make us into Crystin.”

“What does it do?” I asked.

Bastille paused. “Things,” she finally replied.

“How wonderfully specific.”

She flushed. “It’s kind of personal, Alcatraz. It’s because of the Fleshstone that I can run so quickly. Stuff like that.”

“Okay,” I said. “And the third type of crystal?”

“Also personal.”

Great, I thought.

“It’s not really important,” she said. As she moved to sit down, I noticed something. Her hand—the one that had been holding the dagger that had blocked the Frostbringer’s Lens—had red and cracking skin.

“You okay?” I asked, nodding to her hand.

“I’ll be fine,” she said. “Our daggers are made from immature swordstones—they aren’t meant to hold out against powerful Lenses for long. A little of the ice got around and hit my fingers, but it’s nothing that won’t heal.”

I wasn’t as convinced. “Maybe you should—”

“Hush!” Bastille said suddenly, climbing to her feet.

I did so, frowning. I followed Bastille’s gaze up toward the top of our hole.

“What?” I asked.

“I thought I heard something,” she replied.

We waited tensely. Then we saw shadows moving above. Bastille slowly pulled her dagger from its sheath, and even in the darkness, I could see that it was laced with cracks. What she expected to do at such a distance was beyond me.

Finally, a head leaned out over the hole.

“Hello?” Australia asked. “Anybody down there?”

Chapter 17

I hope you didn’t find the last line of that previous chapter to be exciting. It was simply a convenient place to end.

You see, chapter breaks are, in a way, like Smedry Talents. They defy time and space. (This alone should be enough to prove to you that traditional Hushlander physics is just a load of unwashed underpants.)

Think about it. By putting in a chapter break, I make the book longer. It takes extra spaces, extra pages. Yet because of those chapter breaks, the book becomes shorter as well. You read it more quickly. Even an unexciting hook, like Australia’s showing up, encourages you to quickly turn the page and keep going.

Space becomes distorted when you read a book. Time has less relevance. In fact, if you look closely, you might be able to see golden dust floating down around you right now. (And if you can’t see it, you’re not trying hard enough. Maybe you need to hit yourself on the head with another big thick fantasy novel.)

“We’re down here!” I yelled up to Australia. Beside me, Bastille looked relieved and slipped her dagger back into its sheath.

“Alcatraz?” Australia asked. “Uh … what are you doing down there?”

“Having a tea party,” I yelled back. “What do you think? We’re trapped!”

“Silly,” she said. “Why’d you go and get trapped?”

I glanced at Bastille. She rolled her eyes. That’s Australia for you.

“We didn’t exactly have a choice,” I called back.

“I climbed a tree once and couldn’t get back down,” Australia said. “I guess it’s kind of the same, right?”

“Sure,” I said. “Look, I need you to find some rope.”

“Uh,” she said. “Where exactly am I going to find something like that?”

“I don’t know!”

“All right then.” She sighed loudly and disappeared.

“She’s hopeless,” Bastille said.

“I’m realizing that. At least she’s still got her soul. I was half afraid that she’d end up in serious trouble.”

“Like getting captured by a member of the Scrivener’s Bones, or perhaps falling down a pit?”

“Something like that,” I said, kneeling down. I wasn’t about to count on Australia to get us out. I’d already been around her long enough to realize that she probably wasn’t going to be of much help.

(Which, incidentally, was why you shouldn’t have been all that excited to see her show up. You still turned the page, didn’t you?)