by A J Hackwith
“Andras, you—” Claire paused. Rami approached, having lost the inner struggle to his deep distrust of demons. Timely enough, as Claire wasn’t sure what she’d been about to say. There was nothing to say—to the disappearance of gods, to realms and a doomed future. To all of it. Why would Andras see fit to warn her? She narrowed her gaze with blatant suspicion, but Andras merely smiled. “You are not my friend.” It was a weak finish, a reminder more to herself than to Andras, but she hurried away to rejoin Rami and the others before Andras could get in a response.
What makes a god of the Library? Like a burr, it tunneled its way into her mind.
“We’re doing this. The Library can’t survive fractured and under attack across multiple realms. And we can’t survive if the stories don’t. Humanity can’t survive without stories, not in the ways that make it worth living,” Brevity was saying as Claire rejoined them. She exchanged a glance with Claire and Rami and evidently found confirmation in what she sought there. She took a deep breath. “You can say what you want, but you weren’t the ones that decided to come here—your stories did.”
“My wing deals in a higher form of craft than stories—”
“Songs, poems, letters, memes, whatever!” Brevity threw her hands up. “Souls! That’s the point, right? When people create things, they create a little spark of soul. People recognize that. That’s what gives them their magic. The Library is nothing more or less than humanity making meaning of the universe. Whatever you want to call it, that’s why we’re here. The souls of the Library chose to fight, with or without you. You can whine and sulk all you want, but I . . .” Brevity faltered and took a steadying breath. “I’m afraid too. But I’ve wasted too much time waiting to not be afraid. I’m going to fight. I can be afraid and fight.”
The Library did not choose the unintelligent, but it certainly chose the unwise and the stubborn. The silence around the table only held until Duat’s librarian clicked his beak. “Fear is not the issue. Our primary duty is to our individual wings. The Library has always valued independence.”
“How grand, you’ll each independently be enslaved.” Andras’s tone was low and light with amusement.
“The Library is something a demon couldn’t understand,” Bjorn grumbled. The debate picked up again, rising from a low murmur to raised voices that Claire couldn’t focus on. There was a thought, a realization, burning through her chest like an ember. Her gaze fished around the table, drifting past everyone before she came to a stop at Andras. Narrowed gold eyes met her gaze. Andras was watching, waiting for something. Patience, that’s what made a good demon. They could wait it out, present a united front until it was the precise moment to stab an ally in the back. Andras was a very good demon, because he was calculatingly patient.
“The Library . . .” Something about her voice must have been odd, the way Brevity cut off in mid-argument to turn to her. The quiet eddied around the table, but Claire didn’t care. The thought took shape, and then the thought grew teeth, and her voice was a frosted edge. “This was never a library. What do you think makes a library? A room full of books? A coincidental accumulation of shelves and paper? We were never a library. A library is an integral part of the community it serves. A library is for the needs of people, not librarians. A library changes to meet the needs of those who depend on it. We were never a library! Where were our predecessors when Poppaea fought and lost? Where were you when the Unsaid Wing sought sanctuary? Where were any of you when the books of the Unwritten Wing burned?”
Bjorn was the only librarian who had the grace and guilt to flinch. The others eyed her as if she were a new threat, a feral animal. Perhaps she was. She wasn’t a librarian anymore. So she could say this without doubt. “A library is a place made for sanctuary. A library helps, and serves, all who need it. None of us have run a real library for hundreds of years. At best, we’ve been shadows. Archives, collectors, clutching our treasures in the dark. That’s not a librarian’s job. You talk about preserving a library that never was.”
“Never was.” Echo looked thoughtful. Andras’s smug lips were pulling into a slow smile, as if he was proud of her. The rage Claire felt got funneled into her words.
“Brevity was right. We’ve forgotten why we are here.” Claire glanced at Brev, who’s eyes were wide but who gave a fierce nod of assent. “We can’t go back to how it was, because how it was, was broken. The way we did things was what allowed creatures like Andras to hurt us in the first place. We forgot our own souls. The tradition of our Library is the reason books burned and the Dust Wing exists. That farce of a library is gone, and good riddance.” Her fist hit the table, and even Rami startled. “What we’re here to decide is what we replace it with. Are any of you strong enough to stand up and become real librarians? Any of you?”
The accusation echoed against the silence, against the table, fluttered past the blank-faced librarians to ripple like a wave and crash against the tall library stacks. Every book, vine, letter, poem, song, and soul felt it and listened.
But Claire couldn’t. She couldn’t stand to listen to the answers, not with the shame burning hot in her chest. Her teacup wobbled as she abandoned it and shoved away from the table. Someone raised their voice, calling out her name, but Claire didn’t slow down. There was only one place to retreat. There was only ever one place to retreat. She didn’t know where she was going, but her feet did. Aisles passed in a blur until she was running. Running—so much easier to do in slacks, but she missed the protective perimeter of her skirts. She could hear the books whisper as she passed. Whispers, always whispers.
“Claire.” It wasn’t the voice she’d expected to hear behind her, but today was not a day for expectations. She had stopped. She didn’t know how long she’d stopped, staring at the same shelf. It couldn’t have been long; her breath was still heaving, burning and thin in her lungs. Her hand gripped the shelf in front of her for support. She closed her eyes and rested her forehead against the row of books. They pulsed softly under her skin and echoed against her skull. Souls and stories reaching out to her. Claire shivered.
“Claire.”
She drew a breath and turned. “You should be back with the others, not chasing after me.”
The sconce above haloed Brevity in a soft, flattering glow. The Unwritten Wing loved to embrace her like that, far more kind and accommodating than it had ever been to Claire. That thought would have hurt once; now it was a kindness. Brevity deserved all the hugs.
“I’m a librarian,” Brevity said, quiet but firm as steel. There was a note in her voice that made Claire take a closer look at her. Brevity’s chin was up, teal eyes sparking with intensity. “What you said back there, everyone was listening. I want to be that kind of librarian. I think you do too.”
“I am not a librarian anymore.”
“You are to me.” Brevity hesitated, a question on the tip of her tongue. But instead she said something altogether different. “I’ve found you back here before.”
“Habit, I suppose.” Claire shrugged. “It was the only privacy I had.” The books here were simply bound, the titles stamped in simple boxy lettering. The oldest ones looked like the kind of manuscripts one would tap out on a word processor in Claire’s day, but new additions, ones added since Claire had left this place, were modern creatures, sans serif lettering and mimicking some digital page in white and red. Her fingers sought out a small paperbound story emblazoned with an illustration. Two long-haired figures, frequently wielding swords or embracing.
That had been a good memory—the wonder of it. In Claire’s lifetime, it had been exceedingly difficult to find a story representing love as she felt it, especially if one was a proper middle-class woman from Surrey. They existed—they had always existed—but always between the lines. Subtext. Hinted at but never seen. It had been a revelation to come to the Unwritten Wing and see books—generation upon generation of books—telling the story of people like her tha
t had never been written. Or never had been permitted to be written. Stories that had always been, of people that had always been, but never seen. That was the power of stories, the ability to find a mirror when you felt invisible.
Claire wiped at her eyes and returned the book to the shelf. “I suppose I ran here without thinking about it.” She shifted her gaze to Brevity pointedly. “To be alone.”
“You’re never alone in the Library,” Brevity said.
Claire flinched. “To be left alone, then.”
“Why him?” Brevity immediately clutched a hand to her mouth, as if the question had escaped. Her eyes widened but she didn’t look away.
There it was. She’d asked the question before, and this time she deserved an answer. Claire couldn’t deny that. “Andras?” she supplied softly. Brevity nodded and closed the distance between them with caution.
“Why’d you let him out, boss? What he did—what he is—why?”
There was a pleading note in Brevity’s voice that was a barb straight into Claire’s chest. She looked away but didn’t find any easy answers on the shelves. “We needed an ally. Andras knows the demon court—”
“Andras is the demon court.” The breath came out of Brevity like a hiss. Her face was pale and taut. “After what he did to us—what he tried to do.”
“We can use Andras.” Claire tried to reach out with a placating hand. “We don’t have to trust him—”
The outburst came with a fist slammed into the bookcase next to them. “I saw them! When I was falling, I saw them. Hell, full of demons just like him that are going to—” Brevity stumbled over a wet breath.
“You knew what Hell was,” Claire said, not unkindly.
“It’s so much worse.” Brevity’s eyes wobbled and moistened. The anger drained from her and she slouched against the bookshelves next to Claire. “It’s so . . . I didn’t realize it before today. It’s awful, what they do. Torture would have been one thing—I read all your human books about that—but . . . there was a dark place I was just prior to that . . .” Her eyes went distant. “The anticipation, the what-ifs, I can see how that’s worse.”
“People create their own Hell,” Claire said, remembering some distant quote from a time when it had all seemed more metaphorical.
“No one deserves that. No one.” A vehement edge cut through Brevity’s voice. “I mean, I can see bad guys getting their comeuppance. And I know you mortals have a thing about serving your time, but . . . forever? Forever is such an awful long time. Even longer alone in the dark.” Brevity’s hands clenched and found Claire’s. “No one deserves that. No one.”
“You should run against Lucifer. You’d have my vote.” Claire shared a smile. She’d never seen the sharp edges of Brevity, not like this. Hard, and strong. She asked it before she could think it through. “How’d you get out?”
“I . . . fell.” Brevity’s brows furrowed. She shook her head sharply before starting again. “No, I . . . I imagined it, Claire. I got scared, so scared, and . . . and I realized that was okay. I got scared, and imagined, and then I fell.”
I realized that was okay. Claire didn’t struggle with the same anxious circles that Brevity did, but she felt a distant step off the spiral that she hadn’t known she was on. She understood the relief. Not to deny the fear but to take it with you. “I see. You got out. You saved yourself.”
“I—” Brevity hesitated. “I was still so scared. I still am.”
“But you acted anyway. That’s a very human sort of bravery, I hear,” Claire said. “I’m so proud—no, I’m so impressed with what you’ve done, Brev.”
Brevity’s cornflower cheeks turned lavender. She appeared to wrestle her emotions under control before redirecting her thoughts to less pleasant things: Andras. This fierce, terrified and fierce, new version of Brevity would not be turned away from terrible things. “He shouldn’t be here.”
“None of us should be here,” Claire said helplessly. “You should be in Muses Corps leadership, bringing dreams to people. Hero should be written and in the world, being read and loved. Rami should be in Heaven. I . . .” The sentence failed her. Claire sank back against the bookshelves. “I lived my life. Heaven is not anything I’m interested in. Perhaps I am the only one meant to be here, and I have brought the rest of you down with me.”
She squawked when Brevity stepped on her toes. “Stop,” she said softly. “Or I’ll tell Hero and Rami.”
Claire didn’t give her the satisfaction of pretending not to know what she meant. She, Hero, and Rami spun around their own complicated, nuanced orbit, and Brevity had always been perceptive. It was no wonder that she sussed it out so quickly. Besides, Claire was tired of denying that she had a heart. It broke far too often for that. “Oh, that’s hardly the case—”
“Why not? I mean, I’ve been meaning to ask that. You’re all half in love with each other. And I am all in love with all of you.” Brevity stopped, reflecting on that. “Muse love, I guess. I never had much interest in the sex stuff, even if there’s an astounding amount of human dreams devoted to it. Why is that? Sex is so basic, so why do humans put so much thinking into it?”
“I . . .” Claire chuckled. “Religious guilt, jealousy, and no doubt an innate propensity to overcomplicate things as a species.”
“Yeah, humans do that,” Brevity said with the same depth of fondness one might have for an especially stupid puppy. “It’s great.” She straightened. “But you don’t have to do any of that stuff now. You are dead. Enjoy it.”
Enjoying death was such an absurdity that Claire could only blink for a moment. “I don’t think . . . It wouldn’t be a good idea.”
“I think . . .” Brevity said, looking at her with a level assessment. “I think it’s the best idea.” She paused. “Is it me? Am I in the way?”
Claire’s hand caught her by the shoulder. She felt herself smiling now. “Oh no you don’t. You’re part of this.”
“Part of what?” Brevity threw up her hands. “That’s what I’ve been asking! Humans are so complicated. What are we?”
It was a struggle to pin the laughter up. Claire took a moment to give the question the thought it deserved before answering. “We are . . . family,” she said simply. “You, me, Rami, and Hero.”
“Just family?”
“There is no ‘just’ about family. Not when I use the word.”
Brevity’s face was made for emotions—possibly a muse trait. The slow bloom of warmth and joy that came over her face was enough to break Claire. In the next moment, Brevity had thrown her arms around Claire’s waist and buried her face in her shoulder. Claire staggered in surprise, and Brevity hugged her tighter. A wet hiccup escaped her, though all Claire could see was the mop of teal curls against her face. “Family,” was all she said, repeating it at a nearly inaudible whisper.
The earnestness, by its very nature, made Claire deeply uncomfortable. A proper British woman didn’t dwell on earnest feelings, let alone discuss them. It was vulgar. These kinds of things were just best left . . . assumed. And even years around Brevity and her font of feelings couldn’t unlearn that discomfort. A knot of something hot and momentous had lodged in her throat. Claire made a noise to clear it. “Well, I think we can leave—”
The rest of the words were drowned out by a thundering, sonorous groan that shook the floorboards beneath their feet. “What—?” Brevity started, but Claire had already extracted herself to fling herself past Brevity at a run.
The hollow groan continued and deepened. The wood floor beneath her feet flexed and bucked, wood screaming against wood. Claire gripped the shelves and nearly lost her balance before Brevity caught up and offered a steadying arm. They ran back the way Claire had just fled, away from the shadows of love and fear, and toward the next emergency. As librarians. As family.
30
RAMI
There’s another ward, fall
en. The characters have all retreated back to their books—good. No use they experience dying when they haven’t even lived.
That is what will happen. No use pretending at softness here and now. Malphas will break down our pitiful wards, crush our paltry resistance, and the rebellion will be over. Hell cannot touch the books themselves, but she won’t need to once she’s defeated me. She will pull the foundations from the Unwritten Wing, and all will fall into chaos. Order requires a mind, requires comprehension. Without a librarian to order it, the unwritten stories of future generations will be lost.
I can’t win against Malphas, but I can’t surrender to her either. Both paths lead to the destruction of the things I swore to protect.
But this is a fairy tale. When have we ever remained on the path?
Librarian Poppaea Julia, 48 BCE
The wake of silence that Claire had left at the table lingered. Rami had a clear view of the hunched shoulders and ruffled feathers from his post away from the table. He felt like an outsider, which was nothing new. But worse, he felt like an intruder. The gathered librarians were not all as emotionally contained as Claire, and what she’d said had struck each of them with different wounds. Echo, wearing her son’s form, peered introspectively into the middle distance. The gnarled knuckles of Bjorn’s hands tightened around his untouched mug of tea while he bickered with the Duat librarian. Rami hadn’t caught their names, and even if he had, they all seemed like distant concerns compared to the way Hero leaned back in his chair, relaxed as ever on the surface but meditatively cracking his knuckles, one by one.
