‘Protect your straw!’ one of the monarchs cried, taking off his large straw hat. He looked around urgently. ‘Oh, false alarm.’
I cleared my throat, glancing over my shoulder. Bastille and Grandpa Smedry had entered the room after me but had left the door open so that the knights guarding outside could hear what I was saying. Bastille’s stern mother, Draulin, stood with folded arms, eyeing us suspiciously. She obviously expected some kind of shenanigan.
Very clever of her.
‘No!’ I declared to the kings. ‘None of that will do. They’re not exciting enough.’ I held up my finger. ‘I’m going to Tuki Tuki. I hear that the royal mud baths there are extremely intense.’
‘Wait,’ King Dartmoor said. ‘You think skydiving through a bottomless pit in the ocean isn’t exciting enough, so instead you want to go visit the Mokian palace spa?’
‘Er, yes,’ I said. ‘I have a fondness for mud baths. Exfoliating my homeopathic algotherapy and all that.’
The monarchs glanced at one another.
‘But,’ one of them said, ‘the palace is kind of besieged right now, and—’
‘I will not be dissuaded!’ I exclaimed with forced bravado. ‘I am a Smedry, and we do ridiculous, unexpected, eccentric things like this all the time! Ha-ha!’
‘Oh dear,’ Grandpa Smedry said in an exaggerated voice. ‘He really does seem determined. My poor grandson will be killed because of his awesome, Smedry-like impulsiveness. If only there were a group of people dedicated to protecting him!’
With that, we turned and dashed away from the chamber, leaving the kings and knights dumbfounded. Bastille, Grandpa, and I entered the main palace hallway, which was lined with frames containing rare and exotic types of glass. They glowed faintly to my eyes, as I was still wearing my Oculator’s Lenses.
‘Do you think they’ll buy it?’ I asked.
‘Wait,’ Bastille said, frowning. ‘Buy it? Did you try to sell them something?’
‘Er, no. It’s a figure of speech.’
‘The figure giving a speech?’ Bastille said. ‘If you’re that interested in her figure, you should be ashamed. Queen Kamiko is a married woman and as least forty years older than you are!’
I sighed. ‘Do you think,’ I rephrased, ‘they’ll believe the act? It seemed a little exaggerated to me.’
‘Exaggerated?’ Bastille said. ‘What part?’
‘The part about me going to Mokia – into a war zone – just to take a vacation. It’s kind of ridiculous.’
‘Sounds like a Smedry activity to me,’ Bastille grumbled.
‘They’ll buy it, lad,’ Grandpa said, jogging along beside us. ‘The knights in particular tend to be very . . . literal people. They’ll assume the worst, and that worst – in this case – is that you are going to blunder off into a war zone because you feel that your pores are clogged. I don’t think we’ll have any trouble getting them to—’
A clanking sound came from behind us. I glanced over my shoulder.
No fewer than fifty Knights of Crystallia were rushing down the hallway in our direction.
‘Gak!’ I cried.
‘Alcatraz, would you stop saying—’ Bastille looked over her shoulder. ‘GAK!’
‘Scribbling Scalzis!’ Grandpa exclaimed, noticing the fleet of knights charging in our direction. Most wore full plate, the silvery metal clanking as their amored feet hit the floor. It sounded like someone had opened a closet filled with pots and then dumped them all onto the ground at once.
We redoubled our efforts, running in front of the storm of knights with all we had. But they were faster. They had Warrior’s Lenses, not to mention Crystin enhancements. They’d catch us for sure.
‘Alcatraz, lad,’ Grandpa Smedry said in a confiding tone as we ran down the wide hallway. ‘I believe I may have discovered a slight flaw in your clever plan.’
‘You think?’
‘I knew this would happen!’ Bastille said from my other side. ‘I’m such an idiot. Alcatraz, if they can catch you before you leave, they can take you into protective care for your own good!’
‘Protective care?’ I asked.