A Hackwith - The Library of the Unwritten

“You could stay at the Library, until we return. Plenty to read,” Claire offered.

“You said demons aren’t librarians because we can’t handle the nature of the books.” He looked down at his clenched hands.

“Leto… you’re not a demon. You’re—”

“I was sent to you. And you’re the only one who’s even tried to tell me the truth. You… you’re the only assignment I have. Until that changes, I’m staying.” Leto tried to sound confident rather than pleading. He chewed on his bottom lip as he saw Claire’s normally brittle brown eyes soften. Sympathy, pity. It wasn’t what he wanted. He didn’t want to be protected, to shield himself from hurtful truths. Not again. It felt the opposite of being human. He wanted… “I want to help. Please.”

Claire swept her gaze over Leto once before nodding slightly. “Okay. All right. I did say you were a fast learner.” She started down the corridor again. “Next lesson: move quickly.”

“THIS IS, QUITE OBVIOUSLY, unacceptable.”

Ramiel had, frankly, expected more of an outburst from Uriel. He’d delivered his report of the encounter on Earth, standing stock straight in the center of the archangel’s office, bracing for the anger he knew was coming. But Uriel had merely listened, giving him the full measure of her ageless, infinite attention until he fell silent.

In some ways, that was much worse.

“You not only allowed our best leads to escape, but you lost our only evidence and means to pursue.” Uriel toyed with a small compass in her hands without looking at it, her stern gaze reserved for Rami. The sharp edges of the navigator’s tool flickered and slid between her fingers like a blade.

“We still have leads—”

“What leads?” Uriel interrupted, voice level but knuckles white as the compass stilled. “Do tell me, Watcher, how we can locate these librarians when they possess the artifact.”

There were no ways, not in the magics Rami understood. He held his tongue.

“What’s more, the fact that you were bested by a dead woman and a—what? A demonic servant who could mug you like taking candy from a cherub?” Uriel shook her head. “It’s a stain on Heaven. Was it sympathy? Your fondness for humans from your time as shep—”

“Souls!” Uriel’s glare could melt galaxies, but Rami swallowed and pushed forward. “Hell’s librarian is a human soul .”

When Watchers had served Heaven, Ramiel had been the Thunder of God… and the shepherd. Sent to lost souls to shepherd them to the afterlife. No soul stayed lost under Rami’s care. The conclusion lit Uriel’s eyes with a strange, sharp glimmer. “You can track her?”

“Not while she’s in Hell or another realm,” Rami admitted. The lost status of a soul was critical. “But if she strays to Earth again or travels the roads between, I should be able to narrow our options. Without a divine mandate, however, it will take some time.”

A smile curdled Uriel’s expression, a strange and unnatural look. Rami had thought winning Uriel’s approval would be satisfying, but instead it felt startling, like a show of claws. “Make your preparations. The fact remains that we must move forward quickly to catch up. We know Hell’s Library has it. May, in fact, have the whole thing. I’m not giving the victory to the Betrayer that easily,” Uriel said. “In the meantime, we’ll start with the other realms she’d be likely to rabbit to. The major ones: Duat, Jannah, Valhalla, Indralok. We have passage agreements with most realms of paradise. If we’re very fast and very blessed, we’ll catch the scent.”

Rami abruptly felt less an angel and more a hunting dog. But one look at Uriel’s hungry smile and he held his tongue. “And if we catch up with the librarian?”

“Ascertain whether she has the rest of the codex. Follow and impede if she does not. Hell cannot be allowed to acquire this book. And if she has it already…” Again, Uriel twirled the silver compass in her palm. She abruptly flipped her grip and drove the point into the desk. “She serves Hell. She is already damned. If the librarian seeks salvation, then Heaven’s justice will purify her.”

SOMETIMES, WHEN CLAIRE ALLOWED herself a moment to reflect on the absurdity of her fate, she wished she could find the soul of old Father Roderick. It was one of the few memories she’d kept. He’d presided over her family’s parish and instilled in her, at the wicked age of eight, the deep fear of damnation of her immortal soul. She drifted away from it, as many children did, and grew up into a comfortable agnostic, or as much as was proper for the time. But now, literally residing in Hell, she wished to revisit those old conversations with Father Roderick. Father Roderick, who taught her the necessity of good Catholic guilt. In the end, guilt and self-recrimination were the worst sins for a soul.

What would the good father think to see her? Her current position in Hell was entirely due to her own soul’s self-imposed judgment. She dealt daily with condemned souls and demons because her own soul didn’t believe she deserved better.

And perhaps the most scandalous thing she could tell Father Roderick was, frankly, how comfortable it was. She had regrets, deep regrets, yes, about how she’d lived her life, the time she’d wasted. They were why she’d ended up in the Library. But the after life she’d built up was more than acceptable. The start had been rough, and there were the mistakes she made, hauntings she still pretended not to have. She was not completely insulated from Hell here in the Library.

But there was work to do, a purpose to her fate. And she owed something to those in her afterlife. She owed something to the Library, its books, Brevity. Now there were Leto and the damaged book to consider.

Claire found herself well suited for damnation. Sorry, Father Roderick.

By the time Claire and Leto returned, Brevity had put the hero to work trundling carts of books up from the recesses of the Library. The muse tolerated his sulky muttering with more aplomb than Claire would have, patting his slumped shoulder as she sent him off with another cart.