by A J Hackwith
“You’re hiding something,” she said.
“It’s Hell. Of course I’m hiding something.” Claire made a vague shrug of her shoulders. “The only question is, Is it the same thing you’re looking for?”
Malphas’s expression grew warmer, if no less suspicious. “Careful, little librarian. Get too good at this game and Hell may decide to keep you for themselves.”
“Hell could not afford to keep me in the damnation to which I am accustomed.” Claire gestured vaguely to the collection of problems around her, with a finger flick for Hero. A warm feeling beneath his breastbone immediately decided it was a compliment. It nearly distracted him from noticing how Claire’s eyes slid past Malphas’s shoulder, and she abruptly cleared her throat.
“If that’s all, General Malphas, I do have an Arcane Wing to run.”
Not being a fool herself, Malphas turned her attention behind her. In the shadow of the Arcane Wing’s wide double doors, Ramiel waited. His trench coat was even more rumpled than usual, feathers escaping the epaulets to stick up around his collar like some disgruntled owl. It was an atrocious look, absolutely horrid, and it never ceased to fill Hero with an inexplicable fondness. So much so, in fact, that he nearly missed the other visitor.
Pallas, smooth and perfect as a statue, was hard to miss normally. The—what was he, an attendant?—attendant of Elysium was no more than a blond sliver clutching Rami’s sleeve. There was no official title in the Library for Pallas. His mother was the librarian of the Unsaid Wing and wore his body like a puppet when the mood suited her, a feat Hero hoped to never have to witness again. One trip to Elysium’s library had been enough for him. Pallas should not be here, and his presence could only indicate a new problem.
More important, Hero noted with irritation, Pallas should not have been so forward as to clutch Rami like that.
These calculations occurred in the split second it took to glance back and catch the particular level of superiority in Claire’s frown that she reserved only for deep alarm. If Pallas was here, then that likely meant other members of Elysium were here—for some ungodly reason—and Hell would not take kindly to visitors of a paradise realm encroaching on their doorstep. Hell barely tolerated the Library, which held a distinct policy of moral neutrality when it came to the afterlife. The Library could hardly afford more suspicious attention from Malphas.
Claire’s lips parted but closed again as Hero made an irritated sound. He wasn’t quite foolhardy enough to nudge Malphas aside, but he put extra dramatics into his sigh as he stepped around her. Attention was an easy thing to manipulate, once you knew the trick. “Ramiel, you scoundrel! You terrible cad.”
The way Rami’s brows inched together, like two anxious caterpillars in the middle of his forehead, never ceased to delight. He was excessively attractive when confused. Hero continued forward, slipping an arm through Pallas’s elbow and stealing him away with a graceful turn. “Bringing a damsel down here, really! And while I was away visiting your senior, to boot.” Hero squeezed Pallas’s elbow, and the youth had the good sense to stay quiet. “I know you Arcane Wing types flaunt the rules, but leave our poor charges out of it.”
Rami’s broad olive features did a complicated twitch before regaining control. Bless his heart, the angel was just not wired for impromptu subterfuge. Hero said a silent thanks when Pallas cleared his throat.
“No, it was my fault. I swear it, Sir Hero. I begged Sir Ramiel until he agreed to take me along. I wanted to see the”—Pallas’s eyes darted around the dim wing for a flicker of a heartbeat—“the tables . . . so awfully much.”
“The tables are impressive. Connived your way into it, did you?” No damsel, indeed no self-respecting book of the Unwritten Wing, would call Hero “sir,” but Pallas’s wide blue eyes and cherubic cheeks, which flushed with performative guilt, would have sold a lie to the devil himself. “Not that an angel should lose out to a mere book.”
Perhaps it was his time in Hell. Perhaps it was Hero’s bad influence, but Rami managed to recover in the time Pallas had bought him. “One would think. But I appear to have a weakness.”
Rami’s constructed poker face almost hid the amusement in his eyes. Any flush of color in Hero’s cheeks could be dismissed as annoyance, surely. He made a scoffing sound in his throat.
He’d nearly forgotten about Malphas until she spoke. “Behaving like children, as usual. I expected a better level of control from you, Claire.”
“The misbehavior of unwritten characters is not my concern, alas,” Claire said, hands primly clasped in front of her. She was the picture of buttoned-up propriety, which just made Hero want to pluck at her buttons. “As the general keeps reminding me, I am no longer the librarian.”
Malphas offered Claire a smile that didn’t pretend to reach her eyes. “That would mark the first time you listened to me, child.” She hiked the sizable box against her hip with one hand, a relaxed reminder of her superior strength. “We will speak again. Pray you listen to me then.”
“Quite,” Claire said in that particularly British way that simultaneously said both Sure and I’d rather eat dirt. She held her placid mask in place until Malphas disappeared down the hall and the air colored with a sharp burst of anise and cinders, which signaled her true departure. All pretense dropped when Claire whirled on Rami and Pallas in alarm. “What for hell’s sake are you doing here?”
“Language, ma’am,” Rami muttered. He swallowed a particularly worried sound but was beat to the answer.
“Mother wants to see you,” Pallas said simply.
2
CLAIRE
There’s not much time. The Library is—no, me, I am failing. The songs are failing. Darkness grows in the stacks. Malphas will find her way in soon.
I will keep writing until the pen is taken from my hands. I owe the books that much. I can’t save it, at least not in the way that I’d planned, but I can preserve it. The Library has to grow to become a force for good. I will change the Library, or I will perish in the attempt.
Librarian Poppaea Julia, 48 BCE
“Mother” was a complicated term to humans, even at the best of times. Memory of her own mother was another bit of Claire that Hell had snipped and nibbled at the edges. She was left with a vague sense of a sufficient childhood and an excess of books and candies slipped to a small, persistent child. That would have been practically indulgent child-rearing by the standards of Claire’s day.
Pallas’s mother was trouble by any standard. Claire had never had the occasion to meet the woman who held the Unsaid Wing as librarian, but Rami’s report and the way the color drained from Hero’s face was reputation enough.
“I don’t believe I’ll have liberty to travel to Elysium anytime soon,” Claire pointed out.
“Oh, no.” Pallas broke into a shy smile. “Mother is here. Waiting in the Unwritten Wing.”
“Oh shit,” Hero muttered.
Claire didn’t run through the hallways, but perhaps only because she could use Hero’s long strides as a reason to sprint.
* * *
♦ ♦ ♦
“Inventory?” Hero kept his voice pitched only for her as he drew up alongside. The hallways of Hell flashed by in a distracted blur.
Claire had been expecting the question. “It was an inventory. Malphas will find everything in order.”
“Signed by Walter yesterday? He’ll attest to that?”
Claire shrugged. “Death has as subjective a sense of time as one would expect.”
“You’re playing fast and loose, warden.”
“Your influence, no doubt.” She hesitated as she rounded the stairs. “Any idea why Elysium has sent people?”
She caught motion in the corner of her vision as Hero’s mouth twitched down. “No. None.”
Alcoves and staircases flashed by the corners of her eyes, unimportant and ignored, as she reassessed the s
ituation. Pallas’s presence in the Unwritten Wing was bad—Malphas would have had every right to be suspicious—but the librarian of one wing abandoning their own realm to interfere with another? That was a disaster.
Claire should know; she’d been that disaster. She’d had a clear and thorough rationale, of course. Strange, it felt different on this side of the experience.
The doors of the Unwritten Wing were open, and distant voices leaked out of the stacks as they entered the lobby. The librarian’s desk—Brevity’s desk—sat empty. Claire paused, fingertips resting on the desk for a moment, but the air was still. The books stacked on the nearby cart lay quietly, and the lamp on the desk remained a cheery soft white. Nothing wrong, not yet. Claire took a slow breath and exchanged a glance with Hero and Rami.
Hero shrugged eloquently. Rami gestured down one of the far aisles that wound deeper into the thicket of stacks. “I left them near the damsel suite.”
“Your books are funny,” Pallas mused, fingertips drifting over the returns cart. “They talk.”
“So do yours,” Hero pointed out.
“No,” Pallas said with a touch of regret. He began to drift down in the direction Rami had indicated. “They only echo.”
“Why are the pretty ones always so creepy down here?” Hero complained as they followed after him.
“You would be one to talk,” Claire said.
“I’m too well-bred to be creepy.” Hero placed a hand on his chest in mock offense. It didn’t keep him from knocking shoulders with Claire. “Hey. You called me pretty. Warden, I’m touched.”
Once, Claire might have assumed Hero was being annoying for annoyance’s sake, instead of trying to ease her with a distraction. Once, she would have risen to the bait—well, she would still rise to the bait, but it would be accompanied with a comfortable easing in her chest. “I said nothing of the sort—”
“I will accept this confession of admiration with grace—”
“Oh, bugger off, you—”
“You are both well-proportioned beings of many attractive values.” Rami’s voice rumbled behind them, making Hero startle. “A fact that I fear will not benefit us with the librarian of the Unsaid Wing.”
“Unless she wants to wear one of us,” Hero said with a shiver. Claire noted the paleness in his cheeks. The banter had drained out of him.
The damsel suite’s door stood open, cutting a cheery light across the shadows of the Library stacks. Just inside, Brevity stood with her back to the door, shoulders up around her ears with obvious uncertainty. The damsels clustered around her like a shield. The characters of the Unwritten Wing were protective of Brevity in a way they’d never been of Claire. That was not unusual.
What was unusual was the pond that appeared to flow out of the fireplace and pool in an indentation in the floor. Against the diffuse lights of the damsel suite, the water reflected a dark, murky surface. Not ink, Claire told the sudden incendiary in her chest. She concentrated her gaze on the waterlogged doily that was just visible through the edge of the water near her toes. Water, not ink.
Feathers brushed her cheek as Rami stepped forward, offering his grounded presence. On his other side, she could see Hero’s hand gripped tightly. Brevity made an effort to disentangle herself from the wary crowd of damsels before joining them.
“I brought them, Mother.” If Pallas noticed the combined distress of the Unwritten Wing, he made no sign of it. He stepped lightly over a tilting ottoman to kneel on the waterlogged carpet. “Will you speak with them now?”
“Now,” the pond echoed. Without the benefit of high canyons, Echo’s voice was quieter, limited to a flutter of sounds rebounding against the pond surface.
“Is that really necessary—” Hero made a nauseated sound as Pallas reached toward the surface of the water and his reflection reached back.
“Steady, Hero,” Claire said quietly. She had never met the Unsaid Wing’s librarian before. Hero and Rami had eventually described their foray into Elysium, but she was keenly interested in observing Echo for herself. Each wing of the Library chose unpredictable librarians, all especially suited for the nature of their wing.
The Unsaid Wing, it appeared, preferred the heart of a mimic. Claire watched with a clinical eye as Pallas tipped to the water’s edge and his reflection rose to meet him. The exchange, when it occurred, was eerily seamless, though nothing outward appeared to happen. It was as if the dynamic of life switched places. The reflection stepping out of the pool was now the living image, and the boy slumped against soggy carpet was just a reflection.
People stepped out of books in the Unwritten Wing. There seemed something not quite right about stepping into people.
“Greetings, Librarian,” Claire said as Echo straightened. She unfolded her hands behind her back enough to nudge Brevity forward. To her credit, Brevity fumbled only a moment before clearing her throat.
“Welcome to the Unwritten Wing.” Brevity appeared to wipe the palm of her hand off on her pants before offering it. “Brevity, the current librarian. You’ve already met Hero and Rami. And Claire is the curator of the Arcane Wing, as you might know.” Claire felt a flash of pride for how smoothly Brev rattled that off. No flinch, no pause.
Echo-as-Pallas took her hand after a weighty moment. Echo stopped, appearing to search Brevity’s eyes before her expression drifted into sorrow. “No,” she repeated softly.
Hero had described how Echo, true to her myth, could only repeat what others said, in whole or in part. The Greek librarian lifted a hand and gestured to her daughter. A flicker of annoyance crossed Iambe’s fine features before she stepped forward with a sigh. “Mother has a request. I suppose she brought me to save us time.”
“Time,” Echo repeated, though Pallas’s lips never moved.
“I’m getting to it, Mother.” Iambe straightened, appearing to choose her next words with uncharacteristic seriousness. “The Unsaid Wing is in danger. We require the assistance of fellow librarians.”
Hero made a disbelieving click of his lips. “From what? You lot are in paradise, for gods’ sakes.”
“That would, it appears, be the problem.” Iambe was able to match Hero down to his precise lip curl. “Elysium took note of your visit. The resident heroes started asking questions.”
“I imagine your mother was as helpful as she always is.”
“That’s precisely the problem; she was.” Iambe rubbed her temple. “They followed the trail that you neatly left, and then did something you weren’t clever enough to do: ask Mother a question.”
“It’s not as if one ever gets a straight answer,” Rami grumbled.
“Straight enough, when the questioner is as clever as Herodotus. And the question is, ‘The made and the maker are the same. Why is the Library concerned about books so old?’ ”
“Books so-ol,” Echo repeated, voice watery as she elided the original phrase enough to transform it. Books soul.
“Oh, bugger,” Claire breathed.
“Cheating!” Hero almost stamped his foot. “That’s cheating. Why wasn’t she so helpful when we needed information?”
Iambe exchanged a look with her brother-mother, then lifted her shoulders in a blunt shrug. “You didn’t ask the right question.”
“Elysium knows, then. About us.” Rosia spoke up from the front of the cluster of damsels. Claire had quite forgotten she was still in the room. The girl was still moonlight and shadow, but more solid now. Her gaze no longer wandered but appeared to look straight through you. She considered Echo for a long moment, and even the eerie librarian appeared caught off guard. “They know we have souls.”
“Are souls,” Brevity corrected, looking pained. “Not just partially made up of souls, like inspiration, but are as soulful as any human.”
“They will try to use that,” Rami said quietly, and Brevity’s worry took on a nauseated hint.
�
��They have already tried.” And at that, Iambe looked ill. “The Unsaid Wing is in . . . I suppose you would call it lockdown.”
“Elysium has moved against its own library?” Claire’s voice was low with a streak of horror.
“They have tried. They believe souls are better off in their custody.” If Iambe understood the danger of the situation, she did an admirable job of not showing it. She studied her nails. “Heroes, they’re like that. What paradise realm has never met a soul it didn’t want to save?”
“We don’t,” Rosia said with a peak of color in her cheeks, “need saving.”
“I agree. Your people are so much luckier here in a damnation realm.”
“Yes, here they just want to consume you,” Hero grumbled. “And only if you’re lucky.”
“Key,” Echo said.
“I was getting to that, Mother.” Iambe sighed. “We were forced to . . . relocate.” She made an impatient gesture toward the pool of water.
Brevity glanced back and forth between the pond and Iambe. A bewildered look sprouted on her face. “Your entire Library wing is in there?”
“Temporarily. It is not a long-term solution, of course.”
“How—what—all of it—wow, really?” Brevity’s brain appeared to short out and take a moment to recalibrate. “Can you show me how to do that?”
“I doubt it. Not every library is as . . . inflexible as the Unwritten.” Iambe looked impossibly smug.
Claire jumped straight to the point. “Then what can you possibly want from us?”
For the first time, an uncertain shadow crossed Iambe’s face. She glanced askance at her mother, who nodded. When Iambe turned back, she had straightened her expression into a military kind of dignity. “We request sanctuary.”
3
BREVITY
