Alcatraz vs. the Shattered Lens Read Online Free PDF Page A

a side hallway, Bastille easily keeping up. She had Warrior's Lenses on and could outrun Grandpa and me, but she hung back.
    "Only one thing for me to do!" Grandpa Smedry said, raising a finger.
    "What's that?" I asked.
    "Switch sides!" he replied. And then he stopped running, letting the knights catch up to him. "Come on, let's get him!" Grandpa cried, pointing at me.
    I froze, looking at him, shocked. Bastille tugged me forward, and I stumbled into motion, running again. The knights didn't take Grandpa into protective care. One did pick him up and carry him, however, so he didn't slow them down. In seconds, we were being chased not only by an entire force of Knights of Crystallia but my mustachioed grandfather as well.
    "What's he doing?" I demanded.
    "Burn him at the stake!" Grandpa yelled from just behind.
    “Well," Bastille said, "he never was going to go with us. Remember? When we acted in front of the kings, his part was to claim that he didn't want you to go and couldn't stop you."
    "Dice him up and feed him to the fishes!" Grandpa yelled, voice softer.
    “Why did we decide that again?" I sputtered.
    "Pull his insides out through his nose and paint him with eyeliner!" Grandpa Smedry yelled distantly.
    "Because we didn't want him to get into trouble for what you're doing!" Bastille said.
    "Make him watch old Little House on the Prairie reruns!" Grandpa Smedry bellowed, voice dwindling.
    "Well, does he have to get into the part so enthusiastically?" I said. "He's making me . . . Wait, voice dwindling?" I glanced over my shoulder.
    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 .

 

     
     

CHAPTER 4 ½
     
     
    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