The knights and my grandfather had fallen back. I frowned, confused. The knights seemed to be running as hard as ever. In fact, they seemed to be running even harder than before. And yet they were still losing ground.
‘What?’ I said.
‘He’s making them late!’ Bastille said. ‘Using his Talent! By joining their side, then trying to chase after us, he’s making them all too slow to catch us!’
I gawked, amazed. My grandfather’s skill with using his Talent was incredible. I wondered, not for the first time, what I could manage with my own Talent if I were as trained as he was. Mostly, these last few months in Nalhalla, I’d spent my time learning to avoid using my Talent. I had it almost completely under control. I hadn’t broken anything unexpected in weeks.
I was beginning to think that I might be able to live a normal life. But sometimes, when my grandfather did incredible things with his Talent, it made me envious.
That was stoopid. (And trust me, I’m an expert on stoopid.) I’d spent my entire childhood ruled and dominated by my Talent. Accomplishing something like Grandpa just did was incredible, but also unpredictable. Even the best of Smedrys couldn’t make events like this work all the time.
I wanted to be rid of my Talent. Free. Didn’t I?
‘Gee, what a nice moment of reflection,’ Bastille said, stepping up to me.
‘Yeah,’ I said, watching the troop of frustrated knights, who seemed to be all but running in place, barely inching forward.
‘Do you want another moment or two to, you know, be all philosophical and crud? Or do you want to get your shattering legs moving so we can escape!’
‘Oh, right,’ I said. Grandpa wouldn’t be able to hold them back forever. In fact, they already looked like they were moving more quickly, regaining some momentum.
I turned with Bastille and continued running. We needed to get out of the city, and fast.
4½
It’s undoubtedly becoming obvious to you that my stoopidity in this book is pretty shatteringly spectacular. Not only am I planning to charge off into a war zone with nothing to protect me but a couple of bits of glass but I just managed to alienate and anger an entire order of knights in the process. I just spent the three previous volumes of my autobiography trying to escape the Librarians. Now that I had finally found peace and safety in Nalhalla, I’d decided to run off and put myself into the middle of the war?
Stoopid.
Actually, no, it’s not stoopid. Stoopid just isn’t specific enough. Fortunately, since I’m an expert on stoopidity – and an expert on making up stuff – I’m going to give you a set of new definitions to use for things that are really stoopid. For example, what I was about to go do can be referred to as stoopidalicious, which is defined as ‘about as stoopid as a porcupine-catching contest during a swimsuit competition.’
Bastille and I dashed up a set of stairs onto the upper level of the palace. Once there, I slammed a hand down on the top step and engaged my Talent. A shock of power ran down my arm, hitting the stairs and making them crumble away behind us. Stone blocks crashed to the ground and the banister fell sideways. An enormous puff of dust erupted into the air, like the noxious breath of a belching giant. As it cleared, I could see a group of annoyed knights standing below. They’d finally gotten smart and broken into two groups. Grandpa Smedry could keep only one group late, so the other group was free to chase Bastille and me.
Now they were trapped below. But there were other ways up to our floor. ‘I don’t think we can keep staying ahead of them like this,’ I said. ‘We need to get out of the city.’
‘You just said that at the end of the last chapter!’ Bastille complained.
‘Well, it’s still true!’ I snapped. Below, the knights split again, some running off to find another way up. A few remained behind and began giving one another leg-ups or jumping. They got surprisingly close to reaching the upper floor.
I yelped and hurried away from the hole, Bastille following.
‘Sorry about the stairs,’ I said. ‘Your father won’t be mad at me for that, will he?’
‘We have Smedrys over to the palace for dinner frequently,’ she said. ‘Things like broken staircases are routine for us. However, I will point out that you just trapped us on the upper floor of the palace. I’ll bet my mother and the other knights will have the stairwells all blocked off shortly.’
‘Do you have a Transporter’s Glass station?’
‘Yeah. In the basement.’
‘It’s guarded anyway,’ Kaz added.
I cursed. ‘You’ve got to have some kind of secret exit from the building, right, Bastille? Tunnels? Passages hidden in the walls? A fireplace that rotates around and reveals your secret crime-fighting lair?’
‘Nope,’ Kaz said.
Bastille nodded. ‘My father feels that sort of thing is too easy for enemies to use against him.’
‘No secret passages at all?’ I exclaimed. ‘What kind of castle is this?’