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"So . . . maybe we should have you try to break the walls down," Bastille said speculatively. "You’ll probably bury us in stone, but that would be better than sitting around talking about our feelings and that nonsense."
I glanced over, smiling.
"What?" she asked.
"Nothing," I said. "Just good to have you back."
She snorted. "Well? Breaking? Can you do it?"
"I can try,” I said speculatively. "But, well, it seems like a long shot."
"We've never had to depend on one of those before," she said.
"Good point." I rested my hands against the wall.
The Dark Talent . . . beware it. . . .
The words from the tomb wall returned to my mind. The paper with the inscription sat in my pocket, but I tried not to think about it. Now that I'd begun to understand what my Talent was, it didn't seem a good time to start second-guessing its nature.
There would be time enough for that later.
I tentatively sent a wave of breaking power into the wall. Cracks twisted away from my palms, moving through the stone. Bits of dust and chips began to fall in on us, but I kept going. The wall groaned.
“Alcatraz!" Bastille said, grabbing my arm and pulling me back.
I stumbled back, dazed, away from the wall as a large chunk of stone toppled inward and hit the floor where I had been standing. The soft, springy ground gave way beneath the stone. Kind of like my head would have, had it been in the way. Only that would have involved a lot more blood and a lot more screaming.
I stared at the chunk of stone. Then, I glanced, up at the wall. It was cracked and broken, and other bits of it seemed ready to fall off too.
"Okay, that was expected," Bastille said, "but still kind of dumb of us, eh?"
I nodded, stooping over to pick up a Grappler's boot. If only I could get it to work. I put it up against the wall again, but it refused to stick.
"That's not going to do anything, Smedry," Bastille said.
"There's silicon in the rock. That's the same thing as glass."
"True," Bastille said. "But there isn't enough to make the Grappler's Glass stick."
I tried anyway. I focused on the glass, closing my eyes, treating it like it was a pair of Lenses.
During the months Grandpa Smedry had been training me, I'd learned how to activate stubborn Lenses. There was a trick to it. You had to give them energy. Pour part of yourself into them to make them function.
Come on! I thought to the boot, pressing it to the wall. There's glass in the wall. Little bits of it. You can stick. You have to stick.
I'd contacted Grandpa Smedry at a much greater distance than I was supposed to be able to. I'd done that by focusing hard on my Courier's Lenses, somehow giving them an extra boost of power. Could I somehow do the same to this boot?
I thought I felt something. The boot, pulling slightly toward the wall. I focused harder, straining, feeling myself grow tired. Yet, I didn't give up. I continued to push, opening my eyes and staring intently.
The glass on the bottom of the boot began to glow softly. Bastille looked over, shocked.
Come on, I thought again. I felt the boot drawing something from me, taking it out, feeding on it.
When I carefully pulled my hand away, the boot stayed where it was.
"Impossible," Bastille whispered, walking over.
I wiped my brow, smiling triumphantly.
Bastille reached out with a careful touch, poking the boot. Then, she easily pulled it off the wall.
"Hey!" I said. "Did you see what I had to go through to get that to stick?"
She snorted. "It came off easily, Smedry. Do you honestly expect that you'd be able to walk up the wall with it?"
I felt my sense of triumph deflate. She was right. If I had to work that hard to get one boot to stay in one place, there was no way I'd be able to summon enough effort to get all the way to the top.
"Still," Bastille said. "That's pretty amazing. How did you do it?"
I shrugged. "I just shoved a little extra power into the glass."
Bastille didn't reply. She stared at the boot, then looked at me. "This is silimatic," she said. "Technology, not magic. You shouldn't be able to push it like that. Technology has limits."
"I think your technology and your magic are more related than people believe, Bastille," I said.
She nodded slowly. Then, she moved quickly, putting the boot back into the pack and zipping it up. "You still have those Windstormer's Lenses?" she asked.
"Yeah," I said. "Why?"
She looked up, meeting my eyes. ..I have an idea.”
"Should I be frightened?” I asked.
"Probably," she said. "The idea's a little bit strange. Like one you might have come up with, actually.”
I raised an eyebrow.
"Get out those Lenses," she said, throwing her pack over her shoulder.
I did so.
"Now, break the frames.”
I paused, eyeing her.
"Just do it,” she said.
I shrugged, then activated my Talent. The frames fell apart easily.
"Double up the Lenses,” she said.
"Okay," I said, sliding one over the other.
"Can you do to those Lenses what you did to the boots? Put extra power through them?”
"I should be able to," I said. “But . . .”
I trailed off, suddenly coming to understand. If I blew a huge blast of air out of the Lenses, then I would be forced upward – like a fighter jet, with the Lenses being my engine. I looked up at Bastille. “Bastille! That’s absolutely insane."
"I know," she said, grimacing. "I've been spending way too much time with you Smedries. But my mother is probably only a few minutes away from death. Are you willing to give it a try?"
I smiled. "Of course I am! It sounds awesome!"
Inclined toward leadership or not, thoughtful or not, uncertain of myself or not, I was still a teenage boy. And, you have to admit, it really did sound awesome.
Bastille stepped up close to me, putting one arm around my waist, then holding on to my shoulder with the other. "Then I'm going with you," she said. "Hang on to my waist."
I nodded, feeling a bit distracted having her so close. For the first time in my life, I realized something.
Girls smell weird.
I started to feel nervous. If I blew with the Lenses too softly we'd just fall bac
k down into the pit. If I blasted too hard, we'd end up smashing into the ceiling. It seemed like a very fine balance.
I lowered my arm, pointing the Lenses down straight by my side, my other arm held tentatively around Bastille's waist. I took a breath, preparing myself.
"Smedry,” Bastille said, her face just inches from mine.
I blinked. Having her right there was suddenly really, really distracting. Plus, she was hanging on rather tightly, with the grip of a person whose strength has been enhanced by a Crystin Fleshstone.
I fumbled for a response, my mind fuzzy. (Girls, you might have noticed, can do things like this to guys. It's a result of their powerful pheromones. They evolved that way, gaining the ability to make us men fuzzy-headed, so that it would be easier for them to hit us on the heads with hardback fantasy novels and steal our cheese sticks.)
"You okay?" she asked.
"Uh . . . yeah," I managed to get out. “What did you want?"
"I just wanted to say thanks.”
"For what?"
"For provoking me," she said. "For making me think that someone had set me up to fail on purpose. It's probably not true, but it's what I needed. If there's a chance that someone stuck me in that situation intentionally, then I want to figure out who it was and why they did it. It’s a challenge."
I nodded. That's Bastille for you. Tell her that she’s wonderful, and she'd just sit there and sulk. But, hint that she might have a hidden enemy somewhere, and she'd jump to her feet, full of energy.
"You ready?" I asked.
"Ready as I'll ever be."
I focused on the Lenses – trying to ignore how close Bastille was – and built up Oculatory energy.
Then, holding my breath, I released the power.
We shot upward in a lurching burst of wind. Dust and chips of stone blew out beneath us, puffing up the sides of the shaft. We blasted upward, wind tussling my hair, the opening to the pit approaching far too quickly. l cried out, deactivating the Lenses, but we had too much momentum.
