by A J Hackwith
“You are perfect,” Claire snapped, and the protective fierceness made Leto smile, just a little. She was wrong—everything in his screaming heart knew it—but it meant something, that she believed it. “I mean all of this happening at once. Coincidences don’t happen, not in Hell. Brevity should have sent word by now too, if the Library was in rights. Something else is going on, and of all the members of our little family right now, I trust you at my side the most. I need you.”
Leto turned and found himself blinking to process that. Claire was a wielder of words, prone to confusing speeches like a teacher, ingrained with librarian authority and scholarly control. But this request had an unvarnished, raw grain to it. Honest and easily bruised. Leto felt the world silently resettle around him to account for that. It confused him, and he was so very tired of feeling confused.
Claire was wrong about him. Wrong about the humanity he had left inside. She cared, and she hurt people with that caring. But she tried. She was trapped, perhaps even more than he was. The Library and Hell were tethered to her, like a cuff around her neck, but she never stopped trying. She never looked back. Leto desperately wanted some part of that. “When can we leave?”
Claire’s lips twitched at the plaintive note in his voice. He supposed it was ridiculous: the idea of a soul eager to leave Earth and go to Hell. She didn’t see that every time they went to Earth, he seemed to feel more confused, more tugged in two directions. He worried one more good tug might rip his seams entirely. Only the Library held him together.
“You want to go back?” Claire asked carefully.
Leto shrugged. “I didn’t think there was a choice.”
“Our ghostlights have run out, and Hellhounds are after our souls. It’s going to be difficult, to say the least, to set foot outside the walls without being obliterated. I’d say desperation has broadened our bartering position.” Claire made a vague gesture: to the courtyard, to the fading twilight above. “What do you really want, Leto?”
He had a hangnail. His thumb worried at it as he thought. It was a question no one had asked him—not in Hell and, Leto felt relatively certain even without memories, not often when he was alive. The choice was a little unnerving. “I want . . . to make a way forward. And I guess I . . . want to know. I can’t stand not knowing. These feelings I get, I don’t know which part of me . . .”
“Hell may not help that. We send our souls there for various reasons but . . . you should know,” Claire said quietly, a complicated look furrowing her brow. “Realms enjoy stasis. The longer you’re there, the harder it is to see yourself anywhere else. It has a way of seeping in.”
That didn’t sound comforting. Leto gnawed on his bottom lip. “I just want to know who I was. Who I am. I won’t find that here.”
Claire tilted her head as if absorbing that, then nodded. “Fair enough. We’ll just have to outsmart the Hellhounds.”
She stated it like a simple course of action, but made no movement to get up. The silence was companionable as they gave the flagstones more contemplation than they probably deserved. Leto felt his chest unwinding and said, “So. You like girls?”
A smile tipped onto Claire’s face and she chuckled. “I like . . . interesting people. Everyone has their charms. The details never mattered much to me.”
“So you’re pan?”
“Pan?”
“Pansexual,” Leto explained.
“Is that the term now?” Claire asked, and it took a moment before the realization fluttered into Leto’s gut. Another word, another memory. Claire studied his face and relaxed. “I remember loving, a few times. I was married to a very nice man in life. We had a daughter, even.”
“A daughter?” Leto was caught off guard by that.
“She was . . .” The ease fell off her face. Claire frowned. “Damn. I can’t remember her name anymore. My own daughter.” A kind of grief flickered but was just as quickly tucked away. She cleared her throat. “Memories are another casualty of Hell. The more you’re forgotten on Earth, the more you forget yourself. It can be a blessing or a curse.”
The light in Claire’s gaze had faded, dark as the twilight clinging to the square now. “Well, I’ve already got that problem,” Leto said, hoping it would cheer her. When it did, it felt like a small victory. He rocked to crouch on his heels. “Not that I’m likely to forget all this. Should we be getting back, ma’am?”
Claire heaved a deep, grumbling sigh at that. “Oh, blast, we should. The heroes are likely at each other’s throats again.” She fluttered her hand and Leto helped haul her to her feet. “And I still haven’t gone over how I need your help. Let’s talk on the way.”
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
THE FRONT ROOM OF Beatrice’s apartments was already in disarray from the search, and now appeared to be the scene for a very lazy duel. Beatrice perched at the edge of her desk, feigning interest in the paperback in her hands. She appeared entirely unaware of the half-lidded glare Hero maintained. He was slouched against the wall near the door, and straightened as Leto returned with Claire. The Hounds picked up again as their targets returned closer to the walls. The intermittent growls shivered through the floor at Leto’s feet, sending a chill over his skin. At least they were no longer throwing themselves against the wards.
“You’re wasting time refusing,” Hero pointed out, seeming to continue some line of debate he’d engaged in with Beatrice while they were gone. “The warden is very persistent when it comes to her books. I should know.”
“You’re too cliché to be one of her books.” Beatrice licked her thumb and turned the page of her paperback. “Frankly, I’m surprised you let another of us out and about, Claire.”
“She didn’t ‘let’ anything. I freed myself. Without help,” Hero said.
“How clever of you. And they say we heroes aren’t smart.” It was Beatrice’s turn to squint. She placed an ink-stained finger to her chin. “Curious thing, though. Calling you Hero.”
Leto knew Hero enough now to tell that ruffled him. A tic started in his jaw. Hero’s gaze flickered to Claire and back. He didn’t challenge Beatrice with a look again. His hand brushed at his hair in short, jerky movements. “Good a name as any.”
“Really?” Claire had waited out the pissing match with a bored expression that made Leto stifle a grin. She straightened now. “If you two are really quite done . . . Any word from Andras yet?”
Hero shook his head and Claire pursed her lips around a sigh. She crossed the room and plucked out of Beatrice’s hands the paperback, which she’d hidden behind like a shield. “The codex, Bea. Time is of the essence.”
“Time is exactly what I’m considering.” Beatrice was quiet, but she folded her arms in a motion that mimicked her author perfectly and she held her gaze. “I won’t send you back.”
“I’m going back to the Library either way. I’m needed there. The only thing we’re debating is whether I have to take you with me or not.”
Beatrice’s slouch stiffened into stubbornness. “I won’t go back. I’ll give it to your angels first.”
Claire’s smile chilled. “We’ll see about that.”
There was a beat of silence that threatened to freeze over. Leto coughed. “I’m hungry. Is the kitchen okay to use or . . . ?”
“Down the hall. Help yourself.” Beatrice didn’t break her glaring match with Claire, but she waved a hand vaguely behind her.
“Come on, Hero. Should eat something while we still got human taste buds,” Leto said.
“Oh no. This showdown is too good to pass up.” Hero, recovered from his earlier mood, danced a look between Claire and her hero. “Like a bull and a brick wall.”
“I’ll assume I’m the bull in this scenario,” Claire said.
“Not even for little cakes? You said you liked cakes with frosting,” Leto said.
Hero finally allowed himself to be distrac
ted. “Maltese cakes?”
“Little Debbie, actually. I think I saw a box earlier while we were searching. C’mon.” Throughout the exchange, neither Claire nor Beatrice had moved. They’d barely blinked, locked with a divide of hurts between them. So Leto was relieved when Hero allowed himself to be led from the room. They wandered down the hall and left the librarian to face her hero.
26
CLAIRE
How much easier it would be if everyone knew their role: the hero, the sidekick, the villain. Our books would be neater and our souls less frayed.
But whether you have blood or ink, no one’s story is that simple.
Librarian Gregor Henry, 1982 CE
IT WAS A SLOW-MOTION earthquake, the lurch and shiver of the ground beneath her feet, perfectly timed with the deep, bottomless howl that reached through thick city walls to stroke goose bumps over her skin. The Hellhounds were not tiring. Claire knew they wouldn’t, but there was a difference between theoretically understanding an immortal, indefatigable, undeterrable monster from Hell and having it shake plaster dust into your hair.
The interminable shuddering as the beasts flung themselves at Mdina’s wards, the way the air in her lungs seemed to vibrate each time they howled, the way her pulse rose and fell with their growls—it all rubbed her nerves raw. Her sanity might break before the Silent City’s wards did. The unrelenting rhythm of it was dizzying.
It was why she was simultaneously relieved and annoyed when Beatrice broke the silence.
“I have something for you.” She hefted from the desk a familiar book, leather bound and weathered, like all unwritten books. Beatrice held it gingerly, her face full of vulnerable uncertainty—an alien expression for a hero. She watched Claire like she was an animal she might startle with fast movements.
Claire crossed her arms. “Unless that’s the codex pages, you and I have nothing to talk about.”
Ink-stained fingers curled reflexively against the book. “I was under the impression that a librarian had a duty to her books.” Beatrice kept her voice neutral. “I was hoping you would be willing to look at mine while you were here.”
Claire’s anger faltered, despite her best efforts. “Your book is damaged?”
“Just loose binding. Thirty years on Earth is hard on a body. I don’t want to risk losing any pages.”
Claire pursed her lips at that. A shade of the old guilt and duty tugged at her. “I’ll work on it in exchange for the pages of the codex.”
“The Claire I knew would have done it out of kindness.”
“The Claire you knew killed her only friend for an infatuation. Let’s hope a lot has changed since then.” She tilted her chin. “I’ll do it for a favor, then.”
“We both know it was more than an infatuation,” Beatrice pressed. She shook her head. “I just wanted to talk.”
“Then it’s convenient that your needs and desires don’t concern me anymore.” Despite these words, Claire snatched the book from Beatrice’s hands and picked at the disintegrating thread. Something in her twisted at the sight of a damaged book, especially her own. “I suppose you don’t have any traditional linen thread in this day and age.”
“You can get anything in Malta if you simply know who to ask.” Beatrice waved to her recently tidied desk. “Scarlet dyed, hand drawn, just like you prefer. Bottom drawer.”
Claire sat down behind the desk and began shuffling through the drawer, pulling out a tidy bunch of red thread, thick needles, and other bookbinding materials. The familiarity brought a strange stab of comfort.
Beatrice drew near her, leaning on the edge of the desk. She felt the unwritten woman’s dark-eyed gaze follow her hands as she pulled out a particularly sharp-looking scalpel and needle. Color drained from Beatrice’s cheeks, her shoulders stiffened, and she faced straight ahead.
Books were squeamish patients sometimes, but that suited Claire. She turned her focus on the book and began inspecting the tension in the binding. Stress slowly edged out of her shoulders as she set into a rhythm of running her ink-stained fingers over each line of thread, progressing quickly through her inspection with long practice.
It was calming, after a fashion. Books were always easier this way. Mere paper and leather. Simple, physical, containable. But, like people, books rarely stayed that way. Stories never lived only in the ink.
Beatrice kept her eyes forward, but long, calloused fingers drummed on the desk in a patient rhythm. “You seem to have made friends. They’re . . . nice.”
“A demon, a broken hero, and an amnesiac. If you want nice, you should meet my assistant.” Claire adjusted the desk lamp for better light. “You’re in luck. It appears the headband is frayed and just needs tightening. Good. I didn’t have the time or resources to do an entire rebinding.” She began to work her tool carefully between the leather cover and the spine.
Beatrice flinched away at the creak of leather. “You trust them enough to travel with them.”
“Trust born of necessity.” Claire finished working away the leather cover, leaving a thick stack of sturdy vellum pages fused together with thread and glue. She ignored much of the binding and focused on the delicate line of frayed thread at the top of the spine.
Snipping sounds filled the heavy pause. Beatrice’s voice was barely louder than the pluck of thread. “You really won’t consider staying?”
The question was so plaintive, but the answer was so obvious. Claire shot her a frown, but the unwritten woman was too busy studying her shoes to notice. She turned her attention back to the book. “It’s out of the question. If I stay, worse things will come. Either the Hellhounds will wear down the wards, or the angels will con their way in. You’re sitting on a time bomb. There’s no use.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Beatrice’s shoulders bunch. “We planned to face down worse things once. Together.”
“Well, we didn’t exactly run away together, did we?” Claire’s voice turned acidic and harsher than Beatrice deserved, but she opted to focus on the colored knots of thread rather than see her reaction.
“And that was my mistake.”
“Yes. Seems to have worked out well enough for you.” A vicious feeling spiked up her chest. Claire struggled not to overtighten the thread, forcing her hands to relax as she worked. It helped if she imagined she was stitching Beatrice’s mouth shut.
Beatrice was quiet a moment, so quiet that Claire wondered if she’d disappeared into her book again. “You don’t know who you’re traveling with.”
“I think I know them better than you.”
“Do you?”
The way Beatrice said it made Claire’s brow furrow. When she looked up, Beatrice had her chin tilted toward the light, was watching her in profile. “If I can’t convince you to stay here, then you should know the creatures you’re calling friends.”
Claire hesitated. “If this is about Andras, I—”
“The character.”
Confusion brought Claire up short. “What about Hero?”
“Has he said anything specific about his story? The role he plays?” Beatrice studied the desk, purposely not looking at her own book. “He’s not typical, is he?”
Claire scowled and turned back to her work. She lacked any patience for petty jealousy, book or no. “He’s maddeningly annoying. I’d say that’s a prime heroic trait. That and the cheekbones.”
Beatrice coughed and shook her head. “I forget how librarians have only the external to go on. He’s fooled you by looking the part.”
Claire narrowed her eyes. “What are you driving at?”
Beatrice’s mouth tightened as she considered her words. “Looks can be deceiving. The prettiest ones are. Outside and inside his book.”
In his book? As if that mattered: characters were true to how they were written, at least at first, and granted, Hero had begun to display unusual quirks of per
sonality, but that could be attributed to corruption. It made sense that the damage would warp him. Make him less kind, more cruel. Less noble, more grasping. Vain, self-preserving, unreliable, sarcastic—yes, Claire could list all his many flaws. His attitude was more self-serving than . . . Claire stopped midstitch and laid down the needle. Oh, she’d been a damn fool. She considered, turning the thought over in her mind, lining actions and memories up against it.
Then carefully, thoughtfully, pragmatically, she folded the implications up and tucked them away for later.
Beatrice watched her with obvious pity. A hand reached out, briefly skimming over her shoulder in a way that made Claire tense. “Do you understand the danger? You can’t trust his nature. Grant him the slightest opportunity and he’ll turn—”
And carefully, thoughtfully, pragmatically, Claire lost her patience for concerned ex-lovers.
Leather clapped under her palm as she slammed the book cover in place, and Claire found herself standing. She leaned over the desk with enough force to make Beatrice startle.
“You have precisely zero room to lecture me on trust. Listen to me and listen carefully, because though I shouldn’t have to explain this to my own creation, I am only going to say this once. I am not a damsel in need of saving. You aren’t the hero in this story, and you sure as hell aren’t my knight in shining armor. No—” Claire snarled as Beatrice made to speak. “You never were! Look at yourself and use your inky brain for once! The same hair, same eyes. I bet you even love oysters and hate salads. I don’t know that because I’m your author. I know that because when I dreamed up your story, you weren’t the woman I wanted to love; you were the woman I wanted to be.”
A chill blanched the color from Beatrice’s face. Her mouth fell open. “That can’t . . .”
Claire didn’t stop. It was a wound, and Claire wanted to wound her, someone, anyone. If only so she wouldn’t be the only one hurting. “Me, as I wished I could have been, once. Independent, competent, educated, and wealthy, above the constant expectations of family, and, most of all, free of society’s rules. Why wouldn’t I have wanted that? I should have made you a man while I was at it.”
