Page 23 of Only Hard Problems

Slowly, the roar faded away, along with the concussive waves of fire and force. I crawled out from beneath the desk and stood up. Intense ringing sounded in my ears, as though dozens of alarms were jangling all around my head.

Disoriented, I wobbled back and forth on my feet, my stormsword glowing a weak, watery blue in my hand. A thick cloud of smoke billowed over me, and my violent coughing reignited the painful ache in my cracked ribs, along with the pounding pain in my head, despite the skinbond injectors I’d used earlier.

I blinked a few times, and the library settled back into focus. What was left of it, anyway.

The explosion had reduced the wooden cases to smoldering splinters, and loose pages from the burned books drifted through the air like charred gray snowflakes. The framed portraits on the fireplace mantel were piles of ash, the gold frames melted to the wall. All the plants had been reduced to blackened husks, and flames flickered here and there, greedily consuming everything they touched.

Debris had slammed into the desk I’d taken cover behind, and long, jagged bits of crystal, metal, and stone stuck out of the sides like makeshift spears. If the wood had been an inch thinner, I would have been skewered to death. I shuddered and spun away from it.

In addition to the ruined furniture, the grenade had shattered all the windows and blown out half of the back wall, revealing the blue moons and bright stars of the summer solstice sky.

Some of the roaring finally faded from my ears, but in the distance, screams and shouts rose up. Everyone at the solstice celebration had heard the explosion, which meant Silas wouldn’t care about quietly sneaking around anymore. No, the only thing he would be concerned with now was his escape, and he would order his remaining Black Scarabs to cut down anyone who got in his way.

Knowing the Techwave’s penchant for destruction, Silas wouldn’t waste this opportunity, and he would wade right through the center of the solstice celebration and try to hurt—and kill—as many people as possible. My gut clenched at the thought of my father and grandmother getting cut down by Black Scarabs. It would be terror, chaos, and carnage—unless I stopped it.

I tightened my grip on my sword, swerved around the many fires burning in the library, and staggered over to the blown-out wall. I had to reach the lawn, and my family, before it was too late.

Theexplosionhaddecimatedthis part of the library, which was on the castle’s second level, and created a gigantic pile of rubble that stretched all the way down to the ground some twenty feet below. I hopped from one chunk of stone to another, as though I was surfing down a rippling wave of rocks. The pieces of stone slipped, slid, and shattered under my boots, but I made it down the rubble pile without falling and breaking my neck.

The instant my feet were on solid ground, I sprinted forward, rounding a corner of the castle and heading toward the back lawn where the solstice celebration was taking place. Up ahead, the tall honeysuckle bushes loomed into view, the bulbs still glowing in the thick branches. Hope sparked inside me. Perhaps I was wrong, and Silas had slipped out of the castle another way, without targeting the guests—

Pew! Pew! Pew!

Bright red blaster fire erupted, several of the bulbs shattered, and more shouts and screams sounded. I blocked out my cracked ribs, along with all my other aches and pains, once again shoving them all into that permaglass box buried deep inside my mind. Then I sucked in a breath and forced myself to run faster.

My boots churned up grass, along with the rich earth underneath. I didn’t have time to skirt around the honeysuckle bushes, so I plunged straight into the closest one. The rough branches scraped across my hands and face, while the sticky blossoms clutched at my clothes like pink leeches, but I hacked them all away with my stormsword.

I burst through to the other side and had to stop short to keep from tripping over a House Rojillo guard. He was lying face up on the ground, his mouth gaping in surprise, his body still convulsing from the violent electric shock he’d received. The poor man hadn’t even had a chance to draw his blaster to defend himself. Neither had any of the other guards scattered on the ground nearby like twitching oversize pink petals.

My gut twisted with fresh dread. Silas and the Black Scarabs had already neutralized the perimeter guards, which meant there was no one left to stop them from attacking the solstice guests.

I couldn’t help any of the fallen guards, so I skirted around them and hacked my way through another honeysuckle bush. Then another one . . . then another . . .

Slowly but surely, the lawn came into view, and each new glimpse of the chaos and destruction sent another arrow of worry shooting straight through my heart.

Overturned game booths with props and prizes spilling out of their busted sides. Splintered tables and shattered chairs. Platters of food littering the ground like colorful mush. Broken bulbs spewing sparks. Smashed sun- and moon-shaped crystals glinting like jagged diamond shards in the trampled grass. Fires burning around the drinks table, fueled by the alcoholic punches that had soaked the grass.

I gritted my teeth and worked harder and faster, hacking through another honeysuckle bush . . . and another one . . . and another one . . .

Finally, I broke through the last bush and made it out onto the lawn.

Roughly a dozen Black Scarabs were rampaging through the ruined remains of the solstice celebration, smashing through whatever was in their path. How in all the stars had that many Scarabs gotten onto the lawn so quickly?

In the distance, water erupted like a geyser, and a Black Scarab trudged up out of the lake and onto the grass. Silas had hidden his Scarabs at the bottom of the lake, just outside the security perimeter, and then waited for the right moment to activate them. Clever.

The remaining House Rojillo guards had taken up defensive positions behind the overturned game booths and were firing their blasters at the Scarabs, although the machines shrugged off most of the bolts and kept advancing. Rigel was also firing a blaster, although his weapon was punching large, devastating holes in the Scarabs, just like Asterin’s blaster had earlier. Yells and shouts zipped through the air, along with the continuedpew! pew! pew!of blaster fire, and the sulfuric stench of electricity hung over the lawn like a hot, smoking blanket.

A Scarab rushed up on the blind side of a guard who was shooting at another machine. I stepped in that direction and opened my mouth to shout a warning.

Too late.

The Scarab latched on to the guard with one of its mechanical hands, hoisted the screaming man high into the air, and then tossed him aside as though he was as light as a piece of plastipaper. The guard slammed into one of the honeysuckle bushes, crashed through the branches and flowers, and dropped to the ground, although I couldn’t tell if he was unconscious or dead.

Most of the Regals and servants were running past the guards toward the relative safety of the castle, although a few folks were trapped on the lawn and crouched down behind the splintered tables near the dance floor—including my family.

Beatrice was on her knees, a long, sharp cake knife gleaming in her fingers, while Fergus was standing over her, brandishing the broken, jagged stem of a crystal flute. My father was in front of them, clutching a fork in one hand and a sparking string of bulbs in the other. A few feet away, the head of one of the Black Scarabs swiveled from side to side, as though it was searching for a specific target. Its glowing green eyes locked on my father, and the machine spun in that direction and rapidly advanced toward him, as if it had finally seen its objective.

My heart seized in my chest, but I raced in that direction. I swung my stormsword out in front of me like a machete, hacking through the splintered tables, busted chairs, and everything else in my path. Glasses shattered under my boots, hot sparks sizzled over my body, and blaster bolts zinged by my head, but I shut out all the noise, chaos, and commotion and calculated the distance between myself and the Scarab and the distance between the Scarab and my family.

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