JAMES POTTER AND THE VAULT OF DESTINIES

about it. I'm all out of ideas and I know from experience that that means you two are completely tapped out as well.' He sighed and shook his head.

       'Hey, I'm the one what thought of hiding the horseshoe under the Warping Willow,' Ralph reminded the blonde boy, scowling in annoyance. Zane shrugged again and rolled his eyes.

       'I just hate feeling stuck like this,' James groused darkly. 'We're so close and yet we're completely stymied. I feel like that bloke Roberts who had to live on top of the sunken Aquapolis like a shipwreck survivor, so close to civilization, but cut off from it, all alone up on top with nothing but the waves and the seagulls to keep him company.' He leaned forward and crossed his forearms over his knees, exhaling dourly. A moment later, he realized that Zane was staring hard at him.

       'What did you just say?' the blonde boy asked in a low, emphatic voice.

       James shrugged it off. 'It was just this bloke that we met on the journey here. He lived on the very top of the Aquapolis, the part that poked up out of the ocean like an island whenever the city was sunk beneath the surface…'

       'No, no,' Zane said, his eyes growing sharp. 'Before that! What did you say his name was?'

       James glanced quizzically back at Zane, but it was Ralph who answered.

       'Roberts?' he said. 'What's the big deal about that?'

       Zane's eyes bulged. He looked back and forth between James and Ralph in apparent amazement. 'What's the big deal?' he exclaimed. 'You two just said it! Roebitz! You're seriously telling me that this island dude's name was Roebitz?'

       James looked aside at Ralph. 'We didn't say Roebitz,' he replied in a puzzled voice. 'We said Roberts. Can't you hear?'

       'Spell it!' Zane demanded, nearly vibrating with excitement.

       Ralph sighed, and spelled out the name. Zane's eyes bulged even further.

       'It's your accent!' he said, as if to himself. 'The English accent! When you say Roberts… it sounds like Roebitz!'

       'We don't have any accent,' Ralph scowled. 'You Americans do.'

       'Don't you see?' Zane said, pushing James hard enough to nearly knock him off the stone wall. 'Magnussen spoke with the same accent you two do! He never approved of the country's break from England and insisted on speaking the same way you Brits do! He called it 'the King's English', remember?'

       James' own eyes began to widen slowly. 'In the Disrecorder vision,' he said, 'when Franklyn was explaining Magnussen's riddles, he imitated Magnussen's accent! We didn't recognize it, though since Franklyn's an American. We heard it wrong because we didn't recognize that he was mimicking the way Magnussen spoke. He didn't say 'Roebitz' at all!'

       Ralph finished the thought for all of them. 'He said Roberts,' the big boy breathed in a low voice, glancing at his friends. 'The Nexus Curtain… lies within the eyes of Roberts!'

       All three boys stared at one another, dumbstruck. Slowly, they all turned toward the ruin behind them, looking up over the broken bits of garden wall and the weed-choked stairs toward the remains of the grand facade. The lintel over the door still bore the engraved name of the original owner: 'ROBERTS'.

       In front of this, jutting crookedly up out of the tall grass, just as always, was the statue of the man himself, his stern face weathered with age, his wand held purposely at his side.

       'The eyes of Roberts,' James said quietly, suddenly flush with adrenaline.

       'It can't be that easy,' Ralph muttered, shaking his head. 'Can it?'

       'Only one way to find out,' Zane said, jumping down from the stone wall and clapping his hands together. 'Whaddaya say, Ralph? Feel like giving me a little boost?'

       Three minutes later, James stood in the shadow of the statue of Roberts, peering up at Zane as he stood atop Ralph's shoulders, struggling to reach the back of the statue's head.

       'It's a good thing this thing's pedestal is mostly buried in the dirt,' Ralph grunted. 'Otherwise we'd never be able to reach the top of it.'

       'There're holes in the back of the head!' Zane called down. 'Two of them, side by side, see? Push me up a little higher, Ralph.'

       'I'm pushing as high as I can,' Ralph groaned, struggling to stand on tiptoes. 'What do you see?'

       'Nothing,' Zane said, his voice muffled as he pressed his eyes to the back of the statue's head. 'The holes go all the way through the statue, right out the eyes, as far as I can tell. But there isn't anything inside here at all.'

       James frowned, and then a burst of inspiration struck him. 'Can you see through the front?' he called up. 'Like, what if the secret isn't literally in his eyes. What if it's what he's looking at?'

       Zane was silent for a moment as he struggled to line up his own eyes with the holes in the back of the statue's head. Finally, he shook his head.

       'No good,' he replied. 'It's all blurry. I can't line up the holes, somehow. It's like being totally near- sighted.'

       'Hurry it up,' Ralph grunted. 'Your heels are like anvils. How can a skinny little prat like you weigh so bloody much?'

       'Wait a minute!' James said suddenly. 'I've got an idea!'

       Swiftly, he dropped his knapsack and unzipped it. He dug for several seconds and finally retrieved something from the bag's recesses.

       'Here,' he said, jumping up and turning to Ralph. 'Hand these up to him.'

       'Your glasses?' Ralph frowned, glancing at the object in his hands. 'You're serious?'

       'It could work!' James insisted. 'Just hand them up to him!'

       'Let's see 'em, Ralph,' Zane called down, reaching. 'You never know. James is due for a good idea one of these times.'

       Ralph reached up and handed the glasses off to Zane. Carefully, Zane stretched up again, wrapping his arm around the statue's neck and pushing the glasses onto the stony face.

       'Uh oh,' he said suddenly.

       'What!?' James called.

       'I heard a crack,' the blonde boy called back. 'I think ol' Roberts has a bigger head than you, James. I think he broke the nose of your specs. Sorry.'

       James sighed. 'I have a spare,' he said, rolling his eyes. 'Can you see any better?'

       Zane pressed his eyes to the back of Roberts' carved head again. There was a long, tense moment as he adjusted the glasses and struggled to pull himself into position. He was nearly riding piggyback on the statue's leaning back now.

       'It works!' he finally announced. 'Sorta.'

       'What do you mean 'sorta'?' Ralph asked.