A Hackwith - The Library of the Unwritten

“How… unorthodox.” Claire turned down the row of towering shelves. “Let’s see what His Crankiness wants.”

WHEN THEY EMERGED FROM the depths of the Unwritten Wing’s stacks, Claire found the demon sweating holes into her rug. It was a particularly fine rug, peacock blue and intricately dreamed by an artist of the Ottoman Empire. Dreamed but never made, which made it all the more irreplaceable.

The scent of rotten eggs curdled the Library’s pleasant smell of sleeping books and tea, scalding her nose. A bead of sweat fell from the nervous demon’s cuff and hit the carpet with a hiss. Claire closed her eyes for a count of five. She cleared her throat. “Can I help you?”

The demon jumped and twisted around. He was scrawny, all bones and amber skin in a cheap oversized suit. He appeared human, or at least human adjacent, as most demons did, save for the pinpricks of ears that poked up through an oil slick of springy black curls. He bit his lip, managing to look skeletal and innocent at the same time, and he held a thin purple folder in front of him like a shield. “Ms. Claire, of the… Is this the Library?”

“That generally is where librarians are found.” Claire sat down at her desk. She eyed the repair work she’d started, while Brevity returned to sorting books on a cart. “You’re in the Unwritten Wing. You may read, or you may leave.”

“Oh, I’m not here to—” The demon twitched. Claire tracked his movements out of the corner of her eye, giving the text in front of her only cursory attention. The books stacked on the corner of the desk gave a lazy growl, and the demon sidestepped quickly away. His nervous gaze landed on her hands. “Is… is that blood?”

Claire glanced down at the hand that had held the scalpel. She wiped her fingers on her skirts and returned to her work. “Ink.”

The book open on the desk was one of the young ones, one that still had a chance of being written by its author someday. Brevity had misfiled it with a particularly crotchety series of old unwritten novels. Whaling stories, if Claire remembered right. The impressionable young book now had all sorts of rubbish jumbled in its still-sprouting narrative. Five-paragraph descriptions of food, meditations on masculinity and the sea, complete nonsense for an unwritten tale about teenage witches in love. If its author began to write while it was in this state, she would never attempt another book. It was Claire’s job to keep the books ready for their authors in the best possible state. Tidy. Stories were never tidy, but it was important to keep up appearances.

When she didn’t look up again, the demon coughed and shook loose another bead of sweat. It hit the rug with a dull hiss.

Claire winced. She pressed her scalpel flat against the book. “You’re damaging my rug.”

The demon looked down at his feet. He stepped off the rug awkwardly, found himself on an even more complex rug, and shuffled again.

He’d be at that all day, and Claire would be at repairs all night. She reluctantly turned from the book she was working on, pressing one elbow on it to keep it from creeping off. A slow, deep frown pulled on her face as she gave him a better once-over.

Young, Claire assessed—the young seemed determined to plague her today. A junior demon, though young demons didn’t venture to the Library often. Most of Hell’s residents got reading privileges only after decades of clawing for power. He fidgeted under her scrutiny and combed through his wiry, ragged hair. It made her want to find him a brush. Suspicion tinged with familiarity tugged at her. No demon felt quite right, but there was something exceptionally off about hellspawn with anxiety. Claire raised a brow at Brevity, but her assistant just shrugged.

“You’re… unexpected. I understand you were sent by His Grinchiness?”

He licked his lips. “Yes, but… you can’t… you can’t call him that. His Highness, I mean. There’s a message. I got the brief here.” The demon held it out, eager to be rid of it. Claire didn’t move, so he added, “It says a book is missing. I’m supposed to tell you… it’s… ah, one of yours.”

Claire stilled. “In what way?”

“Because it’s unwritten? Early twenty-first-century unauthor, still living.”

Ah. The tension crept off Claire’s shoulders. “Stolen or lost?”

The demon pawed through the folder before withdrawing a small stack of printouts. “They suspect runaway. No recent checkouts or invocation alarms… whatever that means.”

She grunted. “It means my day is shot. A runaway.”

A bewildered look spread across the demon’s face. “Is that…?”

Claire waved a vague hand. “It means an unwritten book woke up, manifested as a character, and somehow slipped the Library’s wards. A neat trick that I will be keen to interrogate out of it later. It is likely headed to Earth. There’s nothing stronger than an unwritten book’s fascination with its author. But a book that finds its author often comes back damaged, and the author comes out… worse.”

“I’ll pack the scalpels,” Brevity said, and received a dark look. Claire rubbed her temple, a fruitless gesture to forestall the coming headache, then shot out her hand.

“Just give the report here.” She released her hold on the open book, and it happily snapped shut, barely missing her fingertips.

The demon deposited the paperwork in her palm and quickly hopped out of reach. The books stacked on her desk complained with growls that ruffled their pages.

“The author’s alive? Where?” Brevity asked.

He shrugged. “A place called Seattle.”

Claire groaned as she squinted at the paperwork. “It’s always the Americans.”

NAMES WERE A NECESSARY nicety even Claire had to tolerate. The demon introduced himself with a very clumsy bow; this small bit of etiquette helped him to relax and stop sweating acid everywhere. Claire frowned at his name. “Leto. Like the Greek myth?”

The skinny demon ducked his head. “Like from the sci-fi novel.”

“So, you’re a demon of…?”

“Entropy.”

“They sent a demon of entropy to a library wing full of irreplaceable artifacts?” Claire stared at Leto and then shook her head, muttering, “I will kill him. Positively kill him.”

Leto twitched. “If you don’t mind my asking… how, ah, how can you talk about His Highness like that?”

“Simple,” Claire said. “The Library exists in Hell; it doesn’t serve it. He’s not my Highness.”

Leto paled, and she dismissed it with a wave. “It’s a long story. Don’t worry yourself. I still follow orders. This is Brevity, muse and my assistant in the Unwritten Wing.”

“Former muse. I flunked out.” Brevity made a face and offered her hand.

If Leto was a scarecrow teenager in appearance, Brevity was of the sprite variety. Her hair was spiky and short and a dainty shade of sea glass. Beneath the cuffs of a multicolored jumper, propane blue tattoos flowed over paler cornflower skin in a shifting series of script that almost appeared readable, at least until one tried to focus on it.

“Nice to meet you, ma’am.” Leto shook her hand shyly, taking care to keep his fingers back from the ripple of tattoo.

“Hey! A demon with manners. I like this one,” Brevity said.

“Many demons are perfectly polite to me,” Claire pointed out.

“No, many demons are intimidated by the Library, boss. There’s a difference,” Brevity said as Claire pulled out a drawer in search of tools.

The mundane tools of a librarian’s trade included notebooks and writing implements, and the less usual: inks that glimmered, stamps that bit, wriggling wax, and twine. All of them went into a bag that Claire slung across her chest. Pen and paper went into the hidden pockets of her muddled, many-tiered skirts. She’d been buried in some frippery that was dour even for her time, all buttons and layers. She’d chopped the skirt at the knee long ago for easy movement, but Claire lived by the firm moral philosophy that one could never have too many pockets, too many books, or too much tea.