The Key by Michael Grant Page B

be where the phrase grab the brass ring came from.
    â€œThis boy said to me, ‘Why should the children strain for the bauble merely to repeat a meaningless experience that only serves to make them aware of the void that lies before them depriving life itself of any meaning?”
    â€œSo this boy was French, too?” Mack asked.
    â€œNo, he was from India. He had an accent, dark skin, and, as I said, dressed in unusual style.”
    Mack got a tingling on the back of his neck. “Wait a sec. It wasn’t Valin, was it?”
    â€œYes, Mack, it was,” Sylvie said, not surprised that he had guessed.
    â€œBut didn’t you say he was your brother?” Mack said, and then, without waiting for Sylvie’s response, added, “And doesn’t he work for Paddy ‘Nine Iron’ Trout?”
    Sylvie shrugged expressively. “He learns from the man in green, but does he serve him? Valin serves himself alone, I think.”
    â€œAs long as he is working against us, he’s working for the Pale Queen,” Mack said sharply.
    â€œYou see the world in simple black and white? It must be us and them? Good and evil?”
    â€œIn this case, yeah,” Mack said. “The Pale Queen is evil.”
    â€œHow do you know this? Because the ancient Grimluk has told you?”
    Mack moved back a few inches. “Okay, yes. But I’ve also met Risky. That girl is evil.”
    â€œYou feel it here?” Sylvie lay her hand over his heart.
    He nodded because he couldn’t speak.
    Sylvie returned that wordless gesture. “Yes. And so I felt when Valin introduced me to l’homme en vert , the man in green. Paddy ‘Nine Iron’ Trout.”
    â€œYeah, he gives off a kind of evil vibe.”
    â€œA vibe. Yes,” Sylvie said, not quite agreeing. “It was Valin who told me that I was one of the Magnificent Twelve. He told me that the strangeness of my life was because of this curse.”
    â€œCurse?” The word surprised Mack.
    â€œOf course it is a curse. How could it be a blessing, Mack? To have power is to have responsibility. I would have to devote my life to maintaining the empty shell of existence.”
    â€œUm … well, I kind of guess I don’t think existence is meaningless,” Mack said.
    That caused one of Sylvie’s eyebrows to rise in amused skepticism, but she didn’t respond directly. “Valin told me all. He revealed what I had never known: that we shared a father. But Valin was obsessed with his mother’s side of his family, indifferent to the father we shared. He told me that a terrible wrong had been done to his family by your people.”
    â€œDid he tell you what his beef was? Because as far as I know, my family is pretty boring.”
    â€œIt was a long time ago,” Sylvie said.
    â€œEven a long time ago my family was boring.”
    â€œHe did not explain this … as you said, beef. Instead he told me of himself and of the man in green. He told me too much, perhaps. Because as he explained, it seemed to me that I must not join him. But rather that I should fight against him.”
    â€œWouldn’t that be meaningless, too?”
    â€œI must defend la liberté , liberty, no? I am French, after all.”
    That seemed obvious to her, and Mack was frankly so confused by Sylvie he felt it best just to keep quiet.
    â€œValin, he foolishly trusted me with the names of two others who he would attempt to recruit to his side.”
    â€œYou beat him to those two?”
    For the first time, Sylvie smiled. “Valin is very old-fashioned. He does not know email, texting, Facebook, Twitter, or Google Plus. Before he could even begin to reach the two, I had found them online. They figured out ways to come to Paris. And I went in search of you, to unite us all together.”
    â€œHow did you find me?”
    â€œYou leave a trail of YouTubes behind you, Mack.”
    Mack thought back on the first