30

WE DIDN’T PLAN FOR THE PLANE

“WE FIGURED OUT THE clues in our mother’s note,” Celia said, when the room fell totally silent. “We know all kinds of secrets. Now give us our father back or we won’t tell you anything!”

No one said a word.

Oliver looked from his sister to Sir Edmund and back to his sister again. She set her jaw tight. She was grinding her teeth, which she only did when she was really nervous. The room stayed deathly silent.

“Yeah!” Oliver finally shouted, more to break the tension than anything else.

“Oh, children,” Sir Edmund said, and sighed loudly. “Didn’t your parents ever teach you not to lie?”

“We’re not lying,” Oliver said, trying to defend his sister. He was pretty sure she was lying, though. She wouldn’t have figured out all kinds of secrets from their mother’s note and not told him, would she have?

Sir Edmund just shook his head and blew air out through his teeth. He sounded like a balloon deflating, and even from several feet away the twins recoiled at the smell of his breath. Even the other Council members looked uncomfortable.

“Unfortunately for you, there is absolutely nothing I want from you,” Sir Edmund said at last. “There is nothing you can tell me or give me that I need. This is as close to Shangri-La as anyplace on earth, and there is no Lost Library here. There are no tablets. Right now, you are completely useless to me.”

All eyes in the room went back to Celia. Even Oliver was speechless.

“But . . . if you aren’t looking for anything . . . ,” Celia stammered. “Then why . . .”

“Why go through all this?” Sir Edmund said. “Because we are looking for something. Or rather, someone: your mother. We imprisoned the Oracle of Dorjee Drakden, but he wouldn’t tell us where your mother was. We couldn’t understand your mother’s clues in that note, but we very much wanted to find her after all these years. You see, while there are no Lost Tablets, I believe that she copied them before the Council was able to destroy them all. She has the only copy of the Catalog of the Lost Library.”

“You did all this for a library catalog?” Celia exclaimed.

“Oh, yes,” said Sir Edmund. “With that catalog, we would be very close to finding the Lost Library itself—all the knowledge in the world would be under our control. All that power! We couldn’t have your mother finding it and putting it in a museum, now, could we? We must find it first. We must destroy her copy.”

Celia couldn’t believe all this was happening. Everything had been a lie. This wasn’t about discovering something at all. It was about destroying their mother’s discoveries.

“I thought there was no better way to bring your mother out from wherever she was hiding than to put her family in danger. I was amazed she didn’t appear when you were attacked by the yeti. I was amazed she didn’t help with the Poison Witches or the waterfalls or Frank Pfeffer. I’m beginning to wonder if I made a mistake, if maybe your mother just doesn’t care about you at all.”

The twins said nothing. They were starting to wonder too.

“That yeti seems to care more for her monstrous child than your mother does for you. I’m not surprised, I suppose. Such dull children you are. I can’t blame her for throwing you out of the plane.”

“What was that?” Celia demanded.

“Oh, you hadn’t figured that out yet?” Sir Edmund replied casually. “It seems like something from one of your soap operas, doesn’t it?” He smiled, enjoying himself. “She’s the one who had you thrown from the airplane.”