Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians

to,” Grandpa Smedry said. “Quentin and I couldn’t think of a way to get by the traps, so we just fell into them! The room should be completely free now. Each square of Snarer’s Glass can only go off once, you know!”
    Bastille huffed at him. “You could have gotten yourself killed, old man!”
    “Yes, well,” he said. “I didn’t! Now, let’s get moving! We’re going to be late.”
    With that, he rushed out of the room. Bastille gave me a flat look. “Next time, let’s just leave him.”
    I smiled wryly, moving to follow her out of the room. However, something caught my attention. I stopped beside it.
    “Sing?” I asked as the large man walked past.
    “Yes?”
    I pointed at a lantern holder on the wall. “What does this lantern holder look like to you?”
    Sing paused, scratching his chin. “A coconut?”
    Coconut, I thought. “Do you remember what Quentin said downstairs, just after we entered the library?”
    Sing shook his head. “What was it?”
    “I can’t quite remember,” I said. “But it sounded like gibberish.”
    “Ah,” Sing said. “Quentin speaks in gibberish sometimes. It’s a side effect of his Talent – like me tripping when I get startled.”
    Or me breaking things I don’t want to, I thought. But this seemed different. Coconuts… pain don’t hurt. That’s what it was.
    I glanced back at the broken table. The pain of torture hadn’t hurt Grandpa Smedry.
    “Come on Alcatraz,” Sing said urgently, pulling on my arm. “We have to keep moving.”
    I allowed myself to be led from the room, but not before I took one last look at the wall bracket.
    I had the feeling I was missing something important.

Chapter 18
    The book is almost done.
    The ending of a book is, in my experience, both the best and the worst part to read. For the ending will often decide whether you love or hate the book.
    Both emotions lead to disappointment. If the ending was good, and the book was worth your time, then you are left annoyed and depressed because there is no more book to read. However, if the ending was bad, then it’s too late to stop reading. You’re left annoyed and depressed because you wasted so much time on a book with a bad ending.
    Therefore, reading is obviously worthless, and you should go spend your time on other, more valuable pursuits. I hear algebra is good for you. Kind of like humility, plus factoring. Regardless, you will soon know whether to hate me for not writing more, or whether to hate me for writing too much. Please confine all assassination attempts to the school week, as I would rather not die on a Saturday.
    No need to spoil a good weekend.
    “This is it,” Grandpa Smedry said, leading us through another hallway. “That door at the end.”
    The third floor was a little more lavish than the second floor: Instead of stark, unpleasant stones and blank walls, the third floor was lined with stark, unpleasant rugs and blank tapestries. The door had a large glass disc set into its front, and at first I thought the disc had a lightbulb in the middle. It certainly glowed sharply enough. Then I remembered my Oculator’s Lenses and realized that the disc was glowing only to my eyes.
    There had to be Lenses beyond that door – powerful ones.
    Bastille caught Grandpa Smedry on the shoulder as he reached the door, then shook her head sharply. She pulled him back, moved up to the door, and tried to get a good look through the glass disc. Then she raised her crystal dagger to the ready and pushed open the door.
    Light burst from the room, as if that door were the gate to heaven itself. I cried out, closing my eyes.
    “Focus on your Lenses, lad,” Grandpa Smedry said. “You can dim the effect if you concentrate.”
    I did so, squinting. I managed, with some effort, to make the light dim down until it was a low glow. No longer blinded, I was awed by what I saw.
    What I felt at this point is a little bit hard to describe. To Bastille and my cousins, the room would have been simply a medium-sized, circular chamber with little shelves built into the walls. The shelves held Lenses – hundreds of them – and each one had its own little stand, holding it up to sparkle in the light. It must have been a pretty sight, but nothing spectacular.
    To me, the room looked different .
    Perhaps you’ve owned something in your life to which you ascribed particular pleasure. A treasured toy, perhaps. Some photographs. The bullet that killed your archnemesis.
    Now, imagine that