So, do you set mousetraps in your own factory? Of course not. You’ve never seen any mice there. And yet, because of this, if a small family of mice did somehow sneak into your factory, they might have a very nice time living there, as there are no traps to kill them.
This, friends, is called irony. Your mousetrap factory could itself become infested with mice. In a similar way, the Librarians are very good at patrolling the borders of their lands, keeping out enemy Oculators like Grandpa Smedry. Yet they don’t expect to find mice like Grandpa Smedry hiding in the centers of their cities.
And that is why two men in tuxedos, one very large Mokian in sunglasses and a kimono, one young girl with a soldier’s grace, and a very confused young Oculator in a green jacket could walk right up to the downtown library without drawing too much Librarian attention.
Besides, you’ve seen the kinds of people who walk around downtown, haven’t you?
“All right, Smedry,” Bastille said to Grandpa. “What’s the plan?”
“Well, first I’ll take an Oculatory reading of the building,” Grandpa Smedry said.
“Done,” Bastille said tersely. “Low Librarian population, high Oculatory magic content, and a very nasty fellow on the third floor.”
Grandpa Smedry squinted at the library through his reddish glasses. “Why, yes. How did you know?”
Basille nodded to me.
Grandpa Smedry smiled broadly. “Getting used to the Lenses this quickly! You show quite a bit of promise, lad. Quite a bit indeed!”
I shrugged “Bastille did the interpreting. I just described what I saw.”
“Was this before or after she smacked you with her purse?” Quentin asked. The short man watched the conversation with amusement, while Sing poked around in the gutter. Sing had, fortunately, put away his weapons – and was now carrying them in a large gym bag, which clashed horribly with his kimono.
“Well,” Grandpa Smedry said. “Well, well. Sneaking into the downtown library at last! I think our base infiltration plan should work, wouldn’t you say, Quentin?”
The wiry man nodded. “Cantaloupe, fluttering paper makes a duck.”
I frowned. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Don’t mind him,” Bastille said. “He says things that don’t make sense.”
His Talent, I thought. Right.
“And what, exactly,” Bastille said to Grandpa Smedry, “is your base infiltration plan?”
“Quentin takes a few minutes scouting and watching the lobby, just to make sure all’s clear,” Grandpa Smedry said. “Then Sing makes a distraction and we all sneak into the employee access corridors. There, we split up – one Oculator per team – and search out powerful sources of Oculation. Those sands should glow like nothing else!”
“And if we find the sands?” I asked.
“Take them and get out. Sneakily, of course.”
“Huh.” Bastille paused. “Why, that actually sounds like a good plan.” She seem surprised.
“Of course it is,” Grandpa Smedry said. “We spent long enough working on it! I’ve worried for years that someday we might have to infiltrate this place.”
Worried? I thought. The fact that even Grandpa Smedry found the infiltration a bit unnerving made it seem even more dangerous than it had before.
“Anyway,” Grandpa Smedry said. “Quentin, be off! We’re late already!”
The short man nodded, adjusted the carnation on his lapel, then took a deep breath and ducked through the building’s broad glass doors.
“Grandfather,” I said, glancing at Grandpa Smedry. “These people want to kill me, right?”
“Don’t feel bad,” he said, removing his Lenses. “They undoubtedly want to kill all of us.”
“Right”, I said. “So, shouldn’t we be… hiding or something? Not just standing in plain sight?”
“Well, answer me this,” he said. “That man with the gun – had you seen him before?”