by A J Hackwith
Honestly, this was when Hero had expected a smile. Andras loved nothing more than to rile people up and roll in their darkest emotions like a pig in mud. But the demon looked strangely taken aback, then solemn.
“Andras. Hero.” Claire’s voice shook Hero out of his thoughts. She’d stopped with Rami before a white expanse of wall. Something still constricted Hero’s chest every time he looked straight on, but upon inspection he could just make out the fine break that signaled a door. Not the grand double doors of the Unwritten or Arcane Wing, but simple, utilitarian. The kind of door that would lead to a doctor’s office or a conference room or an accountant’s office. It was disappointing, but also fitting. In Hero’s experience, the worst evils were done in innocuous nothing rooms like this one.
It was easy to ignore Andras as he drew up beside the others. Rami shot him a questioning look, but Hero shook his head to dismiss it.
“Ready, gentlemen?” Claire asked.
“Ready,” Andras said.
Hero nodded his agreement but caught the heat of Claire’s concern anyway. “Hero,” she said slowly. “I wish you would wait outside. We might need an escape—”
“I’m not letting you—either of you—walk into Hell alone.”
“The Unwritten Wing and the Arcane Wing, representatives of the Library,” Claire said primly. She nodded to Andras and added, “And company.”
* * *
♦ ♦ ♦
The room was not any of Hero’s definitions of a court. Neither was it the farcical horror that they’d navigated last time. There were no pens, no cages in sight, when Claire opened the door.
Instead, there was a masquerade.
Brevity would have called it a party. Rami and Claire would have called it a bother. But Hero knew the only proper term for it was “masquerade.” Any other word would have been an insult to the swirl of satin and gilded claws that swirled around them. The hall boasted an elaborate painted ceiling, every surface decorated like an ivory wedding cake. Traces of lily and amber hung in the air, first enticing, then suffocating as it drew them into the dizzying whirl of the crowd.
It was beautiful and dazzling and exactly the kind of event that had made Hero break into a cold sweat when he was . . . well, when he was his story. A country rebel turned king was unaccustomed to the dangerous waters of royal social functions. He’d had tutors and advisers, after his rise to power, and Hero was accomplished at feigning confidence, but he’d always dreaded these things. Later in his reign, he usually just drank himself into oblivion to get through them. He was fickle and impulsive when in his cups. Performative cruelty was expected of royalty. It made for a better party.
Perhaps he hadn’t been a good king, in retrospect.
The idea of facing this milieu dead sober proved they were still in Hell. Hero turned, but as expected, the door behind them had disappeared.
Claire made an irritated click of her tongue. “Ugh, wide lapels. Those were ugly even when I was alive.”
Hero squinted, but every courtier in his gaze was decked in trim velvets and sateen. Rami and Andras wore similarly bemused expressions. Hero’s mind ground through the possibilities to turn the corner. “I am guessing you are not in the middle of a vaguely French gala, warden.”
Claire shot him a dubious look and grimaced. “No, worse. One of those endless holiday functions for the office where I clerked. All tedious old white men who—” She stopped, blinking as if trying to clear the memory from her eyes. “Oh.”
“I just see demons,” Rami volunteered.
“Heaven,” Andras chimed in with an unhappy note.
“Hell is a tailored experience,” Hero mused. “It would make sense we all see whatever situation makes us most uncomfortable.”
Claire regarded the crowd with a new eye. Hero didn’t know what she saw, but he saw free drinks. He intercepted a waiter that passed through their orbit and snagged several slender champagne flutes off the gilded tray. He took a sizable sip of one before passing the rest out to the others. Andras regarded the glass as if it were a trap, Claire declined to taste, but to his delight Rami sniffed once, then downed the whole thing.
“Easy, old man.” Hero touched the curve of Rami’s forearm. Hero wasn’t exactly sure if angels could get intoxicated, but he assumed if there was anywhere it was possible, it was Hell.
* * *
♦ ♦ ♦
“Claire, child, how good of you to make it.” Malphas did not match the courtiers in silks and shadow. In any milieu, she was the war mother, grandmother of ghosts. She’d traded in her bloody leathers for a suit, impeccably tailored to her trim frame, in the style of the false-courtly conceit of the room. It was done in a fine weave the precise shade of rust and shadow, the oblivion color of blood just before it disappears into the dark. There was a carnation, bright and pink, adorning the right lapel.
“I had expected you to choose something more martial,” Claire said, sweeping a hand to indicate both Malphas’s dress and the aesthetics of the room.
Malphas smiled that fond, grandmotherly smile she had that chilled Hero straight to the bone. No grandmother looked so about to eat you. “So naive, child. Fine suits and satin gloves have more blood on them than brute armor and brass ever will. We’re beyond such base intimidation measures, wouldn’t you say? Come, you are the guests of honor after all.”
Malphas led them a circuitous route around the ballroom, allowing every minor demon and hopped-up imp in a corset to take a gander. Hero strode on the outside, providing what protection he could from the prying eyes. He risked a measured glance at Rami. The stoic Watcher had paled before at the merest hint of facing the demons he had fallen from Heaven with. Hero was prepared to shore him up, to provide what comfort their burgeoning relationship could offer. But when he glanced at Rami, the angel had a calm, almost half smile on his face. As if this were an afternoon walk. The emotional stability was really quite unfairly galling. Hero wasn’t sure whether to take offense or pride in the fact that Hell couldn’t ruffle Rami’s calm, but Hero could.
Over Rami’s shoulder, Andras had a dour expression on his face. Hero relished a new target. “Not the welcome you hoped for, demon?” Hero delighted in the discomfort on his face. “I thought you’d be overjoyed to be coming home.”
“You would think,” Andras said, voice tight with something that felt familiar but Hero couldn’t place.
“Go easy on him, dear.” Rami captured Hero’s hand and gave it a forward squeeze. Hero had tried forever—days, even—to get Rami to start using affectionate names, but he’d always refused. “He’s only a demon.”
Andras’s expression was schooled into a distant look that almost hid the anger that flashed in his cold gold eyes. “Aren’t you supposed to be escorting Claire, Ramiel?”
“I would never leave this one’s side,” Rami said, squeezing Hero’s arm again, and Hero resisted the urge to stare at him in surprise.
“I appreciate the invitation, General,” Claire was saying ahead of them. “But as I said in my letter, I am here to negotiate for—”
The slap came out of nowhere. Even Rami, who was ostensibly on guard at all times, must have missed it. Hero had been lulled by the press of coifed hair and powdered hands, lulled by the civilized cruelty of it all. Physical violence felt too pedestrian for this lot, but one of the nameless courtiers had slithered from the crowd and struck fast. It was only Andras who reacted when Claire’s chin turned with the force of the slap. He caught the aggressor’s wrist with a stony strength Hero hadn’t thought the old demon capable of.
“Return them.” It was impossible that Hero had ever mistaken the warrior in Andras’s grasp as a courtier. The knight was tall, with a cascade of pale hair skimming past the sword at their waist. Hero blinked and their clothing appeared to melt from the European bustles and lace into a brilliantly colored sash that rested on top of a strange armor of brass. Their
face had a long aquiline quality that was wonderful for sneering.
“Return what?” Claire sounded tentative, as if spinning through a mental Rolodex. She didn’t rub her cheek or give any indication that she’d just been struck out of nowhere. “I don’t believe we’ve met—”
“You steal something you can’t even recall. That makes you ignorant and a thief.”
Hero had a rule; he was the only one allowed to call Claire names. This nonsense was going too far. He took the opening to step in smoothly. “Hero, knight gallant, at your service, sir.”
The curl of the knight’s lip got more severe, as he knew it would. They turned their focus on Hero. Andras released their wrist slowly. “Knight errant, perhaps. Our guards had reports of a strange pretty creation stealing our Library away with false promises. That was you, wasn’t it?”
“Hear that, Rami? I’m pretty.”
“You’re beautiful, darling,” Rami said.
“You’re a diplomatic representative from another realm.” Claire paused, tilting her head with obvious calculation as she looked the woman up and down. “Tír na nóg? The Summerlands?”
“I am Aithne, Duke of the Far Halls, and you have committed the worst treason against my people.”
“It’s only treason if one is a citizen,” Rami murmured politely.
“Charmed.” Claire crossed her arms across her chest. Hero couldn’t help but notice the pause that had pooled into quiet around them. Courtiers had turned their masked gazes to the exchange. Hunger was in the air. “But I have no business with the Fair Folk, so if you’ll pardon—”
“I will not.”
“But faerie aren’t an afterlife belief,” Hero objected.
Claire shook her head. “They are if enough belief lingers. How many generations mourned their loved ones, stolen away by the faerie?”
“We do not need to steal, unlike you,” Aithne interjected.
Claire didn’t rise to the bait. “Take a trip to Ireland. No one may worship the faerie anymore, but see how many are willing to bulldoze a hawthorn tree in an empty field. I’d warrant the Fair Folk are given more circumspect respect than many modern religions.”
“They know better than to make an enemy of our people,” Aithne said. Their hand rested on the pommel of their sword. Hero hadn’t seen it move, and alarm spiked through his nerves.
“We have not stolen anything from you,” Claire snapped, and Hero thrilled at the way she straightened, chin rising with the anger he loved so much. “The Library belongs to no one.”
“You invade our land without invitation, you raid our treasure house—”
“The Library is not gold to be hoarded.” Claire took a step forward, heedless of the fact that the elf knight had a longsword, a head of height, and a couple of stone of muscle on her. “That was your mistake from the start. The tenants of the Library are . . .”
Andras cleared his throat and Claire hesitated. To her credit, she didn’t let herself glance at Malphas, who had been silently reveling in every word. “The Library is sovereign from its host realm. Faerie has not been singled out with this inconvenient fact.”
“No, we have not . . . How bracing it was to arrive and realize I didn’t come alone,” Aithne said, voice taking on an edge. At the edge of his vision, Hero thought he saw cloth and courtiers shift. “Though I would not presume to speak for them.”
The blind bustle of the crowd melted away from some distinctly undemonic figures. There was a rotund bearded man in a fur-lined cape, and there, an elder woman swathed in a turquoise sari. Another wore weave covered with what might have been depictions of Mayan gods and a gold snake around their wrist. There were half a dozen emissaries from other (former) Library realms there. None of them had a sympathetic look for Claire, or the Library. All of them looked aggrieved and prepared for violence.
This was why Hero had come, of course. Claire had that effect on people.
Aithne took a decisive step forward, but then Malphas was in the gap, one hand raised. “Now, now, ambassadors. I appreciate your spirit, but what kind of host would I be if I let you disembowel a guest before refreshments?” Malphas tilted her hand out in a what can you do? gesture. “At least have a glass of wine first. Ours won’t trap you.”
Aithne’s cheek twitched. Their glare didn’t leave Claire when they reached for a glass and took a long, disdainful sip. The threat of violence in the air receded somewhat, from imminent to merely portentous.
Malphas clapped her hands and turned away with a cluck of her tongue. “Such manners in the youth these days.” She ordered them to follow her with an imperious twitch of her battle-scarred fingers. Claire allowed them to be herded, but Aithne watched them over the rim of their wineglass as the Library contingent passed.
“I can see whose idea this was, and you’re not that clever. The next step you take outside the Library, little human, I guarantee you will see me.”
Hero was used to threats. Frankly, he enjoyed a good, colorful oath to end one’s life; it added zest to the day. But there was a dark grain to the statement that turned it from threat to prophecy, an oily certainty that hung in the air and clung after them as they walked away. Hero made the decision then and there that Claire was never, ever stepping so much as into the hallway without a full guard.
Malphas spoke into the silence as they put distance between them and the emissaries. The demon courtiers pressing in around them felt downright safe, in retrospect. “Now is when you would express gratitude if you were wise, girl.”
Claire sniffed. “It’s not as if you could have done otherwise. You’d have looked weak if you allowed another realm to take your prey; isn’t that the way of Hell?” They were being guided toward the long table at the end of the room. In a normal setting it would have been a place for honored guests. Instead, the dais looked like a scaffold. Claire showed no reluctance as they reached the steps. “Besides, we are here to broker an understanding, are we not?”
“You are in a poor position to negotiate, child. You set yourself in rebellion to Hell and then walk willingly into my court? You are foolish if you think you’ll walk out again.”
“Your court, General? I thought it was Lucifer’s.”
The remaining air died out of the room. The air chilled, though not a breeze stirred the lights of the candelabras. The animosity between Claire’s and Malphas’s locked gazes grew and thickened until it shattered on the sharp edge of Malphas’s laughter. “You are an imaginative human, I’ll give you that. Come sit in a place of honor, mortal.”
Hero watched Claire bristle, but then take a moment to cagily measure the width of the audience. The farce of a fete had been suspended; every demonic creature in the court had their covetous attention centered on their backs. It was enough to make Hero’s sword hand itch. Claire weighed their options, then appeared to come to a decision erring on the side of caution. She inclined her head and accepted a helping hand from Rami to ascend the dais. She took the indicated seat next to Malphas at the center of the table, and it didn’t take long for other seats to clear for Hero, Rami, and Andras as the rest of Malphas’s underlings took the hint. Hero beat out Andras for a seat next to Claire—no way he was being pushed to the peanut gallery for this entertainment.
“Where is our vile benefactor anyway?” Claire feigned ease as she settled into her seat. She reached out for the glittering glass of wine that had been set in front of her, then thought better of it. “This is quite the gathering, Malphas. I’d think Lucifer would be present.”
“Your childish snit is hardly important enough to rise to the attention of a god,” Malphas drawled with a strained edge. “Mind yourself, Claire.”
“Oh, I am. Minding, that is. And what’s come to mind is a peculiar pattern. I and my people have been to an awful lot of afterlife realms by now, and I have yet to speak to a single actual god in their domain. Isn’t that curious?”
/>
Technically accurate, Hero supposed. The monstrous crocodile of the labyrinth realm was more of a demigod squatter than a divine creator.
Malphas didn’t seem amused. “I have more than enough authority to destroy you and every person, book, or”—she curled her lip at Rami—“thing that you hold dear.”
“Careful, General Malphas,” Claire said, cool as an exposed blade. “Someone will think you’re setting yourself up as a god.” Frost raced across the back of Hero’s neck in gooseflesh, but Claire continued before Malphas could make good on the murderous look she had. “But then, I suppose absence is as good as permission, isn’t it?”
The feints were subtle in this dance Claire was having, but if Hero read the acid in Malphas’s eyes right, it was Hell that came out of it bleeding. She inclined her head as if acknowledging a point. “How I’ll miss our little talks when you’re gone, Claire.”
“Is that why you’re drawing this out, Malphas? Sentimentality?”
Malphas’s smile fell into a grim line. “I could blot you all out. Right now.”
“Your ledger isn’t the one our names are in.” Claire smoothed her lap and crossed her ankles. “Try again.”
“You offered me the clever brat.” Malphas flicked a dismissive finger toward Andras. If he took offense at being called a child, he had a good enough poker face to not show it. “For that, we can forget your indiscretion with the books. Step aside and let Hell do what we do best, punish souls.”
