‘It didn’t have a dragon to glide on.’
‘No, but it did have a face half-made from metal screws and springs.’
She froze, bottle halfway to her lips.
‘Ha!’ I said. ‘You do know something.’
‘Metal face,’ she said. ‘Was it wearing a mask?’
I shook my head. ‘The face was made out of bits of metal. I saw the creature before, on the airfield. When I ran away, I felt . . . pulled backward. It was hard to move.’
‘Voidstormer’s Lenses,’ she said absently. ‘The opposite of those Windstormer’s Lenses you have.’
I patted the Windstormer’s Lenses in my pocket. I’d almost forgotten about those. With my last Firebringer’s Lens now broken, the Windstormer’s Lenses were my only real offensive Lenses. Besides them, I only had my Oculator’s Lenses, my Courier’s Lenses, and – of course – my Translator’s Lenses.
‘So, what has a metal face, flies jets, and can use Lenses?’ I asked. ‘Sounds like a riddle.’
‘An easy one,’ Bastille said, kneeling down, speaking quietly. ‘Look, don’t tell my mother you got this from me, but I think we’re in serious trouble.’
‘When are we not?’
‘More so now,’ she said. ‘You remember that Oculator you fought in the Library?’
‘Blackburn? Sure.’
‘Well,’ she said, ‘he belonged to a sect of Librarians known as the Dark Oculators. There are other sects, though – four, I think – and they don’t get along very well. Each sect wants to be in charge of the whole organization.’
‘And this guy chasing me . . .?’
‘One of the Scrivener’s Bones,’ she said. ‘It’s the smallest sect. Other Librarians tend to avoid the Scrivener’s Bones, except when they need them, because they have . . . odd habits.’
‘Like?’
‘Like ripping off parts of their bodies, then replacing them with Alivened materials.’
I stared at her for a moment. We fish do that sometimes. We can’t blink, after all. ‘They do what?’
‘Just what I said,’ Bastille whispered. ‘They’re part Alivened. Twisted half human, half monsters.’
I shivered. We’d fought a couple of Alivened in the downtown library. Those were made of paper, but they’d been far more dangerous than that could possibly sound. It was fighting them that lost Bastille her sword.
Alivening things – bringing inanimate objects to life with Oculatory power – is a very evil art. It requires the Oculator to give up some of his or her own humanity.
‘The Scrivener’s Bones usually work on commission,’ Bastille said. ‘So, another Librarian hired it.’
My mother, was my immediate thought. She’s the one who hired him. I avoided thinking about her, since doing so tended to make me sick, and there’s no use being sick unless you can get out of school for it.
‘He used Lenses,’ I said. ‘So this Scrivener’s Bone is an Oculator?’
‘Not likely,’ Bastille said.
‘Then how?’
‘There’s a way to make a Lens that anyone can use,’ she whispered very quietly.
‘There is?’ I asked. ‘Well, why in the world don’t we have more of those?’
Bastille glanced to the side. ‘Because, idiot,’ she hissed. ‘You have to sacrifice an Oculator and use his blood to forge one.’