Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians

who had sent a gunman to kill me.
    Yet I was also pretty certain that this Dark Oculator was the leader of the library. The most important person around. That made him the person most likely to know where the Sands of Rashid were. And I intended to get those sands back. They were my link to my parents, perhaps the only clue I would ever get to help me know what had happened to them. So, I kept moving.
    Now some of you reading this may assume that I as being brave. In truth, my insides were growing sick at the thought of what I was doing. My only excuse can be that I didn’t really understand how much danger I was in. Knowledge of the Free Kingdoms and Oculators was still new to me, and the threat didn’t quite seem real.
    If I’d understood the risk – the death and pain that pursuing this course would lead to – I would have turned back right then. And it would have been the right decision, despite what my biographers say. You’ll see.
    “What are we doing?” Bastille hissed, walking quickly beside me.
    “Footprints,” I whispered. “Someone passed this way a short time ago.”
    “So?” she asked.
    “They’re black.”
    Bastille stopped short, falling behind. She hurriedly caught up, though. “ How black?”
    “I don’t know,” I said. “Blackish black.”
    “But I mean…”
    “It’s him,” I said. “The footprints seem like they’re burning . Like they were seared into the stones and are slowly melting away the floor. That’s how black they are.”
    “That’s the Dark Oculator, then,” Bastille said. “We don’t want to follow them.”
    “Of course we do. We have to find the sands!”
    Bastille grabbed my arm, yanking me to a halt. Sing puffed up behind us. “Goodness!” he said. “Ancient weapons certainly are heavy!”
    “Bastille,” I said, “we’re going to lose the trail!”
    “Smedry, listen to me ,” she said, still gripping my arm. “Your grandfather might be able to face a high-level Dark Oculator. Might. And he’s one of the Free Kingdoms’ most powerful living Oculators, with an entire repertoire of Lenses. What do you have? Two pairs?”
    Three , I thought, reaching into my jacket pocket. Those Firebringer’s Lenses. If I could turn them on the Dark Oculator…
    “I know that look,” Bastille said. “Your grandfather gets it too. Shattering Glass, Smedry! Is everyone in your family an idiot? Do your Talent genes replace the ones that give most people common sense? How am I supposed to protect you if you insist on being so foolish?”
    I hesitated. Down the hallway, the last of the dark footprints burned away, leaving only the yellowish set. I looked down at them, frowning to myself.
    I’m missing something, I thought.
    Grandpa Smedry had explained about the Tracker’s Lenses. He’d said… that the footprints would remain longer for people that I knew well. I glanced back down the way we had come. My own footprints, glowing a weak white, showed no signs of fading. Bastille and Sing’s sets, however, were already beginning to disappear.
    That yellow set of footprints, I realized, turning back toward the ways the Dark Oculator had gone. They must belong to someone I know…
    That was too big a mystery for me to ignore.
    I reached into my pocket, pulling out the small hourglass Grandpa Smedry had given me. “Look, Bastille,” I said, holding it up before her. “We only have a half hour until this place gets filled with Librarians back from patrolling. If that happens, we’ll get caught, and those sands will fall permanently into Librarian hands. We don’t have time to go poking around, looking in random doors. This place is way too big. There’s only one way to find what we need.”
    “The Dark Oculator might not even have the sands with him,” Bastille said.
    “Perhaps,” I said. “But he might know where to find them – or he might lead us to them. We at least have to try to follow him. It’s our best lead.”
    Bastille nodded reluctantly. “Don’t try to fight him, though.”
    “I won’t,” I said. “Don’t worry – it’ll be all right.”
    And if you believe that, then I have a bridge to sell you… on the moon .
    To my credit, I didn’t really want to face down a Dark Oculator. I was half hoping that Bastille would talk me out of the decision. Usually when I tried to do reckless things, there had been adults around to stop me. But things were different now. By some act of fortune – perhaps even more strange than the