by A J Hackwith
Part of him felt light with hope. Part of him hoped she would, right there. That Rosia would use her eerie wisdom and explain, give a name and understanding to the book-shaped hole he was now. Tell him his place in the story again.
Fate had never been that kind to Hero. Rosia tilted her head. “You are Hero.”
A frustrated groan rose in his strangled throat, and Hero collapsed on the armchair to dig his hands through his hair. “I’m not what you think I am.”
Rosia was unperturbed. She advanced on him. “Anyone can be a reader; everyone is a reader from the start. We are what stories we tell ourselves, the ones we choose to believe in. Being the Reader isn’t about reading stories. It’s about sharing them.”
“I didn’t—”
“You listened to the Dust Wing. The stories sang to you, lingered, passed through, and left a haunt in their wake. You carry every story with you now. You lost your own story, but you gained millions of others.” Rosia took a breath and paused, as if crossing an important boundary line. “Will you help others find their own?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Hero said, faint with resignation because he knew the shape of the plot he was in. His story sense was excellent, and he knew when a weird woman started talking about fate it was already too late.
“You will. You just haven’t read that far yet.” Rosia nodded to herself with some satisfaction.
“The Library won’t be complete unless the Dust Wing joins. Our attempts to rebel will fail without it. Is that what you’re saying?”
Rosia was maddeningly silent. Hero dropped his head back against the armchair, stirring up a specter of dust that almost made him vomit. He squeezed his eyes tight against the memory. “I thought I was done.”
“Your story is not over.” Rosia’s voice was soft and certain.
“I’ll go. Just—” Hero felt the tide of messy emotions in his chest. It was harder to swallow this time. He kept his eyes closed. “Just go. I can find my way back myself.”
Rosia was silent. Hero barely heard the click of the door closing again before a jagged sob escaped his hold.
33
CLAIRE
I suppose you could consider fiction a kind of lie. But you’d be wrong to assume all storytellers are good liars. We’re terrible at it—we admit the truth up front.
But sometimes the appeal of a lie is stronger than the one who’s telling it.
Librarian Ibukun of Ise, 787 CE
It was a thin pastiche at best, but it would have to hold. Claire assessed Rami and Andras one last time before nodding brusquely. “That will do. At least for our purposes.” Her gaze skimmed wearily over the damsel lounge again and came to land on a figure emerging from between two bookcases. “Ah, Hero.” She cast a quick appraising glance behind her before crossing her arms in front of her chest. “Where did you hare off to this time?”
Hero was blurry around the eyes. Odd, but Claire could assign that to strain—who could blame him?—and perhaps a lack of rest. Still, the edges of his smile were more false than usual as he wheedled his way into the group. “Rosia caught me.”
“What did she have to say?” Andras asked.
“Cryptic nonsense. What else?” Hero chucked his chin up, challenging the interest in the demon’s voice.
“Well enough.” Claire really didn’t think it wise to foster small talk but was at a loss for where to direct the conversation that would inhabit less dangerous waters. So when the door swept open and a middle-aged damsel made a bid for attention, Claire was relieved.
“The water’s stopped,” the damsel said.
Across the way, Brevity made a gasp that was half relief and followed the damsel out the door. Claire glanced between Andras and Rami, but their faces were equally unreadable and unfamiliar. She followed Brevity out the door.
The dock had grown since they’d left it. Whether it was the sweat of the damsels or the imagination of Brevity’s power as librarian, the jetty extended nearly across the aisle now. The more agile among them could have made the leap from the dock to the nearest bookcase of the Library stacks. (Claire, it should be noted, was not in that category.) Claire couldn’t guess how much higher the waters had risen—with the stacks growing to stay ahead of the waterline and the ceiling lost in the dark overhead, there was no point of reference. But the churn that lapped at the edge of the dock looked ominously deep, fortified by depths of floodwater as Malphas’s attack wedged its way in between the cracks.
There was no visual point of reference, no way to tell how many meters of water the Library floated upon now, but the ripple of relief as tension drained from Brevity’s shoulders said it was no longer growing, no longer forcing her to keep the books one step ahead of destruction. “It stopped,” Brevity confirmed, quiet voice almost dizzy with relief. Her gaze sharpened as she glanced up at Claire. “What’s that mean?”
The silence on the dock lengthened, settling heavily until all she could hear was the gentle slosh of corrupted water against lacquered wood. Claire scanned the shadows of the stacks, but nothing emerged. No raven, cursing on the wing. Her nerves fluttered and she tried not to think about where Bird was. “It means our message was accepted. We are invited to court.”
“Trap,” Hero said blandly.
“What else did you expect?” Rami muttered.
“They expect us to just walk on out of here?” Brevity eyed the water suspiciously.
“Not us.” Claire met Brevity’s questioning look with a sigh. “You should stay here in case the . . . waters rise again.”
“In case the negotiations fail and the court takes its vengeance anyway.” Rosia had no qualms about stating the unstated. She looked rather calm about the whole matter, unlike Brevity, whose pixie face folded into a frown. Claire had braced herself for protest, or at least the recrimination of hurt in the muse’s eyes, but Brevity surprised her with a fragment of a nod.
“I have to stay with the books.” There was no regret in Brevity’s voice, no hint of bitterness at missing out on the excitement of risk. The yearning Brevity had harbored once—which had burned, which had hungered—had grown into a steady self-confidence. “I am the librarian.”
“You are the librarian,” Claire said, and tried, with all her heart, to impart the muddle of gratitude and pride that welled up inside her. Brevity was the librarian of the Unwritten Wing, and Hell should tremble at her door. Claire put her hand on her shoulder. “I’ll go. I can negotiate on behalf of the Library, and I’ll take Andras with me.” Moreover, she was expendable.
“You shouldn’t go alone,” Brevity said, as if she’d heard that thought.
“I’ll escort her.” Rami spoke up, no doubt in his voice.
“Rami, no . . .” Hero breathed.
“I’ll go.” Rami repeated. He turned, a smile playing at his lips as he brought a hand up to Hero’s face, cupped a little too dramatically. “I have to do this, my love.”
A little thick, don’t you think? Claire drew a deep breath that struggled not to turn into a sigh. “Fine, Rami can escort, if he feels prepared to face Hell now. He’ll know their tricks, anyway.”
“Indeed I do.” The angel’s smile was sharp.
Andras cleared his throat with a disgruntled look. He reached over and removed Rami’s hand from Hero’s cheek stiffly. “If we are going, let us go.”
“Cheer up, Andras,” Claire said pointedly. “This will be a family reunion for you. You’re a demon, are you not?”
The look Claire got was withering, but Andras straightened his shoulders. “I know my role.”
“Remember it,” Claire admonished, frowning as Rami winked at Hero once before boarding their little boat. This plan was holding together by the seams, but she had no choice but to make it work. She nudged Andras in next and graced Brevity with one more reassuring look before leaving the dock last. “If
anything happens, don’t wait for us. Protect the Library.”
“Protect the Library,” Brevity repeated softly. Claire scrutinized that but was stopped from asking a question when the boat tipped downward again.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Claire hissed.
“Pushing off. Bon voyage!” Hero kicked the boat away from the dock with his foot and waved to the gathered damsels with a dramatic flourish before settling in on the edge of the prow. “You didn’t really think I was going to let you two go off with that creature without me?”
“No, it is your duty to stay with Brev—”
“Claire.” An intense quiet in Hero’s voice stopped her short. He drew a calm look, first to Rami, then back to Claire. His lips pressed into a fine line. “It is not a matter of debate, not anymore. Where you go, I go.”
34
HERO
I’ve seen enough revolutions in my time to say it with some authority: rebellions are built on love and hope. You can’t reject the status quo unless you are hopeful enough to imagine something better. Of course, that doesn’t make a lot of difference once the killing starts. My homeland was always good at that.
It’s not such a ridiculous thing, to be willing to die for an idea. Sometimes, that’s the only thing worth a good death.
Librarian Fleur Michel, 1734 CE
Claire and Rami were curiously quiet the entire way. The boat floated in silence between canyon walls of bookshelves, bobbing gently against the sides when Rami allowed the boat to drift. Andras muttered quiet corrections in his navigation, but Hero tried to filter out most of what the demon said as a matter of principle. Hero had expected Rami would move aside so Hero could take up a place in the stern next to him, but Rami appeared to barely notice him. Fine, if that was the way it was to be, the ungrateful oaf could sleep on the damsels’ couch alone tonight.
Assuming any of them made it back to the Unwritten Wing. According to Rosia, they were doomed to failure if he didn’t return to the Dust Wing. A jaunt to Hell was preferable to visiting the place where his book—his story, perhaps just he himself—had died. Hero would take damnation over graves any day. He felt a tinge of guilt at the thought—and guilt itself was a novelty Hero had begun to experience with more frequency lately. He reached for a comfortable distraction. Claire’s sour face was a perfect target. “Don’t tell me my company is that repulsive, warden. I’ve been told I have my charm.”
“It’s not your charm that concerns me.” Claire turned her attention to him with a surprisingly concerned knit of her brows. “Couldn’t you have, just once, stayed behind?”
The alarm in her voice caught Hero off guard. “What, you still don’t trust me?”
“The true question is if you trust me.” Claire’s gaze strayed to the other end of the boat, where Rami and Andras minded the oars. “Can you follow my lead in there, Hero, no matter what happens?”
A glib answer would have been easy—Hero kept a dozen on hand at any time. But there was a soft fear in Claire’s dark eyes that forced him to reach for the truth. “I’ve trusted you with my life before, and I will do so as many times as you need me.” His voice sounded more fragile than he liked; Claire had that effect on him.
“I’m—” Claire glanced away briefly. “I have a plan, but out here, anyone could be listening. It’d be too much to say aloud, anyway. You’re going to have to trust me, Hero.” She met his eyes, earnest and bleak. “More than ever.”
“I—” Hero closed his mouth and glanced at Rami’s back. Surely he heard them, but he hadn’t turned around, hadn’t said a word. Rami was notoriously close-lipped, but he could communicate a thousand opinions with the twist of his stoic face. They knew the plan; Hero did not. He was used to being an interloper, but not among those he cared about the most.
This was his cue. It was practically bright in lights above Claire’s head, a villain’s cue. To extract what he could, to above all protect himself from whatever struck the worry into Claire’s eyes. But one couldn’t be a villain without a book. The tragedy granted a moment of freedom that was disorienting. Hero took a sharp breath before shaking his head. He discovered the words as he said them. “I am here to support you. I’ll follow your lead. You have my loyalty and my word, Claire.”
The last time he’d given his word, it had been to Claire. Sour and smarting from his return to the Unwritten Wing, freshly bound to the Library, he’d sullenly promised to look out for its inhabitants. The memory seemed sepia distant, worlds away from the words he said now. He repeated it, only partially to himself. “I swear it.”
Claire’s lips parted, but Hero couldn’t guess what she was going to say. He never could. She closed her mouth with whatever it was unsaid. Nodded once. “All right, then.” The boat jostled under them abruptly. The hallway around them had changed, from wood and stone to something glossy and sinister white. The floor rose, or the water tapered off—it was impossible to tell which—and their little boat beached itself against a tile floor.
“We’re here,” Rami said with a strange tilt to his voice.
Claire nodded to herself and rose. Rami and Andras were already on dry land, securing the boat with reluctant cooperation. Andras offered a hand, and Claire frowned at it for a conflicted second before accepting. She stepped up to the prow, then hesitated as she looked over her shoulder. She met Hero’s gaze for a fleeting moment. “For what it’s worth, I trust you, Hero. My life, the Library, the books. With everything.”
She looked away again just as quickly, hurrying on to the shore. It was as near a love confession as they got, librarian and book, author and character. Nobody and nobody, as their roles currently stood, Hero amended silently. Hero swallowed the stone of feeling down as he followed the others down the hall to Hell’s court.
35
HERO
None of this makes sense. Hell, Heaven, the afterlife. Not if you think about it logically. What are afterlife realms? Which came first, the human idea of Hell, or the realm that claims that title? The mere fact that the realms exist in tandem means it can’t be totally a creation of man’s imagination. One true god—unless you hire a carriage and swing by the next neighborhood over? The prophets and holy books would have surely mentioned a small detail like that.
No, the realms have to be something else, something truer than imagination, belief, or even gods. They’re primordial. These spaces we take up, but not merely to occupy. They adapt, absorb, adjust in response to their inhabitants. The realms become.
It begs the question, If the realms become the occupant, could an occupant become the realm?
That is a question that shall require coffee.
Librarian Gregor Henry, 1971 CE
The vestibule was clean; the vestibule was terrible. White lines rose in simple patterns up the walls. Hero almost preferred the grime and human suffering of their previous court appearance to this. At least then there was some trace of life, however miserable. Here the marble under their feet was soulless and eternal. No mark of anyone who had passed this way, no chance of leaving their own traces behind. It had no past and held no future. Nothing would remain here; nothing could remain. If there was a philosophical opposite to a story, it was this white page of a hallway. It made Hero’s skin crawl. No one met them at the shore, and no guards or sentries intercepted them as they proceeded along the wide corridor to a single inconspicuous door at the other end. The oppressive noncolor surrounded them, pressed down on them. It drummed against the ink—blood? whatever—that ran in his veins. Hero had the wild impulse to look at his hands, as if the white could erase his existence, bit by bit.
But some things were immovable, uneditable, and true. Hero held on to the sight of Rami’s square shoulders, feathers fluffed at precise angles under the collar of his trench coat, a sturdy block of gray and brown against the absence. And Claire, warm brown skin and hair inky black, blots of rebellion in
this place. Small fragments of beads still clasped the ends of her locks, flashes of color and spite. They carried their own stories with them, even here. They could forge their own words and worlds. Hero could not exist in a blank page, but he could hold on to them, mortal and immortal and both all too human, and follow them across the gap. He could, though each step against the white stone felt like falling into nothing.
He would do it, for them.
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a flash of color. Andras had fallen back to walk in step with Hero, and his features were collapsed into a strange and alien expression that Hero couldn’t interpret.
* * *
♦ ♦ ♦
Forget alliances, forget necessary evils. Hero understood all that, but the memory of seeing Andras’s satisfied face as the pages of his book tore still clung to Hero and soured his stomach. He didn’t slow his pace. “What are you looking at, demon?”
Andras had the nerve to actually flinch as if he was surprised. The cruel line of his lips thinned momentarily before he looked away. “You seemed . . . uneasy.”
“Uneasy? On our way to gently lay our necks on Hell’s chopping block for the good of the cause? Uneasy in a void-like prison made by our enemy? What a stunning deduction.” Hero’s stomach roiled behind his protective wall of snark. His loathing for the demon beside him was the only thing that kept his mask in place. “Are all demons so astute? No, of course not; otherwise you wouldn’t have lived the last year inside a tchotchke.” It was a word Hero had just learned from a Slavic book, and delightful to enunciate with a sneer.
To Hero’s horror, Andras actually smiled at that, before getting his expression under control. He lifted his chin and looked away. “I didn’t mean—”
“Oh, you mean,” Hero growled. “You mean everything. You are planning something, don’t deny it.” The pent-up feelings—of rage, of fear, of everything that had started when this one frivolous little snake had decided to meddle and play at king—they all bubbled up and drew Hero to a halt. He stabbed a finger in Andras’s face. “You—I see you. Don’t think you’re fooling all of us. There’s no redemption story for you here, demon. You are fallen and irredeemable and I don’t know what you are planning, but I will stop you. And if you so much as inconvenience them”—Hero pointed his finger ahead, where Claire and Rami had begun to approach an end to the endless corridor—“Heaven’s wrath will seem like a mere slap compared to what I’ll do to you.”
