‘Grappler’s Glass, Smedry. It only sticks to other pieces of glass.’
Ah, right, I thought. Now this might have seemed like a very stupid thing to forget, but you can’t blame me. I was suffering from having fallen to the ground and a hit to the head, after all.
‘Well, how am I going to get up to you, then?’
‘You could just throw me the dagger.’
I looked up skeptically. The ropes seemed wound pretty tightly around her. They, however, were connected to the pillars.
‘Hang on,’ I said, walking up to one of the pillars.
‘Alcatraz . . .,’ she said, sounding uncertain. ‘What are you doing?’
I laid my hand against the pillar, then closed my eyes. I’d destroyed the jet by just touching the smoke . . . could I do something like that here too? Guide my Talent up the pillar to the ropes?
‘Alcatraz!’ Bastille said. ‘I don’t want to get squished by a bunch of falling pillars. Don’t . . .’
I released a burst of breaking power.
‘Gak!’
She said this last part as her ropes – which were connected to the pillars – frayed and fell to pieces. I opened my eyes in time to see her grab the one remaining whole piece of rope and swing down to the ground, landing beside me, puffing slightly.
She looked up. The pillar didn’t fall on us. I removed my hand.
She cocked her head, then regarded me. ‘Huh.’
‘Not bad, eh?’
She shrugged. ‘A real man would have climbed up and cut me down with the dagger. Come on. We’ve got to find the others.’
I rolled my eyes, but took her thank-you for what it was worth. I walked over as she stuffed the boots and dagger back in her pack, then threw it over her shoulder. We walked down the hallway for a moment, then spun as we heard a crashing sound.
The pillar had finally decided to topple over, throwing up broken chips of stone as it hit the ground. The entire hallway shook from the impact.
A wave of dust from the rubble puffed over us. Bastille gave me a suffering look, then sighed and continued walking.
10
You may wonder why I hate fantasy novels so much. Or, maybe you don’t. That doesn’t really matter, because I’m going to tell you anyway.
(Of course, if you want to know how the book ends, you could just skip to the last page – but I wouldn’t recommend that. It will prove very disturbing to your psyche.)
Anyway, let’s talk about fantasy novels. First, you have to understand that when I say ‘fantasy novels’ I mean books about dieting or literature or people living during the Great Depression. Fantasy novels, then, are books that don’t include things like glass dragons, ghostly Curators, or magical Lenses.
I hate fantasy novels. Well, that’s not true. I don’t actually really hate them. I just get annoyed by what they’ve done to the Hushlands.
People don’t read anymore. And, when they do, they don’t read books like this one, but instead read books that depress them, because those books are seen as important. Somehow, the Librarians have successfully managed to convince most people in the Hushlands that they shouldn’t read anything that isn’t boring.
It comes down to Biblioden the Scrivener’s great vision for the world – a vision in which people never do anything abnormal, never dream, and never experience anything strange. His minions teach people to stop reading fun books, and instead focus on fantasy novels. That’s what I call them, because those books keep people trapped. Keep them inside the nice little fantasy that they consider to be the ‘real’ world. A fantasy that tells them they don’t need to try something new.
After all, trying new things can be difficult.
‘We need a plan,’ Bastille said as we walked the corridors of the Library. ‘We can’t just keep wandering around in here.’
‘We need to find Grandpa Smedry,’ I said, ‘or my father.’
‘We also need to find Kaz and Australia, not to mention my mother.’ She grimaced a bit at that last part.