A Hackwith - The Library of the Unwritten

Nothing seemed disturbed on the desk. Brevity let Aurora keep a wary eye on the stacks as she located the midnight blue ledger at the bottom of a drawer, buried under gnarled thread and tea cozies. Claire pretended to be rigidly organized, but really she just hid her clutter well. She dropped open the book on the table and cleared her throat. She placed one finger to the blank page.

“Execute inventory: full.”

If there was something out of place in the Library—or something missing from it—she’d know soon. Or, if she was lucky, the others would return before she had a chance to screw this up. Nerves singing, Brevity clutched an empty teacup to her chest as the book began to hum.

CLAIRE WOKE AS THE sun began to bake the moisture off her skin. She opened her eyes to a dazzling world of sunbaked dust and aquamarine. She also woke choking on seawater.

“Ma’am? Oh, thank… well, ah. Thank somebody . You all right?” Leto crouched on the stone, a trembling hand on her shoulder as she coughed her lungs clear of the taste of old glaciers and burning pine.

She wiped her watering eyes. They were in an alley paved with pale squares. Sandstone, Claire decided, feeling the grit under her fingers as she pushed herself up. She waved off Leto’s concern and took a moment to orient herself.

It was Earth. Claire could tell that just from the air. The air in afterlife realms like Valhalla and Hell was thinner, brighter almost, each lungful colored with the realm’s spirits. Valhalla had smelled of wildflowers, ice, and steel, while Hell left the taste of ash and anise in her mouth.

But Earth was not so simple. The air was weighted by the contradictions and messy complexities of its inhabitants. She could smell stone and warm earth and a dozen trace scents of a living, breathing city. And the sea. The faint salty and green notes of the water in the quay stung her nose. They were in an old port city, then. Hopefully in Malta.

The codex. Alarm jolted her fully alert, and Claire furrowed her brow, trying to call the narrative song of the book to mind like Bjorn had taught her. She rifled around in her soggy skirt pockets until she came up with a pale scrap of parchment.

It was small, smaller even than the codex remnant they had. It was the remains of a calling card—the calling card that Bjorn had destroyed… except for this ashy tendril of paper. She closed her eyes to listen. It was not an entirely unfamiliar sensation, Claire had decided.

It was like when she’d been alive. Whenever she read a book in a binge, cover to cover in a day with little break, she always found it stuck in her brain like a haze. The narrative voice stuck with her, and for a bit after, it was always like a waking dream, living someone else’s thoughts. The book haunted like a ghost in her head, coloring moods until she shook herself from it.

Tracking a song, like Bjorn had taught her, felt like that. Only instead of a vague feeling, it was a pulse she could hear if she listened close enough. The codex’s song was not a pleasant one. Dark and bottomless and splintered, broken glass and tremors in the deep, like corrupted Latin and whale song. But it was there, stronger now that they were on Earth, and she could trace it.

That, at least, was reassuring. She brought her attention back. Leto was staring at her with wide brown eyes. He did look rather puppy- dog-ish as a human, all teenage gangly. She remembered, abruptly, his rough trip to Valhalla. “Are you all right?”

Leto blinked, then rubbed his nose, not quite meeting her eyes. “Oh. Yeah, that one… wasn’t— It didn’t feel as… real.”

Drowning, apparently, was preferential to whatever he had seen on the raven road. Claire sighed and started wringing out her wet skirts, grimacing as she touched her tangled hair. “Andras will be along soon, if all went well. Where’s Hero?”

“He was going to go look for a towel and something to eat.”

Claire stopped midtwist. “You let him leave, alone, on Earth, with his book?”

“Yes?” Leto suddenly looked uncertain. “You weren’t waking up, and we were worried, so—”

“Oh, I’ll bet he was worried.” Claire struggled to her feet and spun in place. They were in an alley. “Which way did he go?” Leto pointed and Claire ordered him to stay put before she pelted into the street.

The roadway connected to the alley was wider but not by much. The thick walls, built to hold back the ocean and the invaders that traveled it, were composed of sedan-sized blocks of sandstone, as were the dust-choked streets. Many of the older buildings rose out of the same sandstone, though she could see newer constructions, bright plaster and steel cobbled and clinging to the parapets of the thick walls like barnacles on a pier. Everywhere, the architecture blended the most outrageous features of a dozen cultures together to spit out medieval walls and minarets with fairy-tale abandon.

The street was busy and forced Claire to waste time weaving between pedestrians. She shouldered her way downhill toward what looked like a port. The nearest form of transportation was a good bet for a book on the run, and Claire cursed herself for giving up her tools. She couldn’t easily locate, let alone call, an IWL outside the Library. That had to be what Hero was banking on. She would chain him to his shelf if he…

The road dumped into a square plaza. Claire had to boost herself up on the edge of a fountain to see over the crowd. She zeroed in on a flash of bronze on broad shoulders and dove into the throng again.

She found Hero at the back of a line for the taxi stand. He was slouched into his jacket, but said jacket was velvet and satin in a sea of denim, so it did little to hide him. Claire cleared her throat. “Food and towels? Really?”

Hero startled, but when he turned his head, he already had an innocent smile on his lips. “I am simply being solicitous about your health. I have it on good authority that the next village over has positively the best kebabs….”

His face was handsome, symmetrical, and enticingly punchable at the moment. “Your consideration is overwhelming. Taxis, really, Hero? I’m insulted,” Claire said. “I thought when you decided to abandon your word, you would be a little more creative.”

Hero crossed his arms and looked down his nose to consider Claire. “Taxis are too simple, I agree. Let’s revise. What if I’d decide to run? How’s your stamina, warden?”

Claire was already winded from the run over, but she attempted to bury that fact with a deep sigh. “You’re already IWL’d.”

“And you’re without your tools of office. How long would it take you to get back to Hell with the little errand you’re on?”

“Quite a while. But when I did, you would still end up in the Library with much to answer for. Unless you think I’ll never make it back because Heaven’s the surer bet in this little race. Is that your wager?”

His eyes were grass green, sunny and sharp, as he studied her. She thought for a moment he was going to take that bet and run. But the smile on his lips faded and he glanced down with an awkward cough. Claire thought she saw color drift across his cheeks as Hero grunted, “I was never a good gambler.”