A Hackwith - The Library of the Unwritten

“The codex?” Andras asked. He sniffed. “If we can hear it again, let’s dump the guide. He is obviously up to something.”

“Exactly what I said five minutes ago,” Hero said.

“No, he’s still leading us in the right direction.” Claire lowered her voice. “As long as he’s taking us toward it, we’ll tolerate whatever foolishness he’s about. It may be this McAllister is in possession of the codex pages.”

“And what part of that doesn’t scream ‘terrible trap’?”

Claire ceded that point. “You’re awfully cautious for a hero sometimes.”

“The living ones usually are.”

Their guide led them down a series of progressively smaller lanes that offered little shade. The sun had reached high in the sky and was unflinching. Andras picked at his increasingly damp shirt with a grimace. “Is Earth always this… unpleasant?”

“You’ve never been above?” Claire sounded surprised.

Andras’s look turned sour. “Rarely and only when I can’t help it. Not during daylight. Subject to dreadful summonings back in the day, before I rose to power. Artifacts usually come to me agreeably enough, not the other way around.”

“That must be nice,” Claire said.

“Heard that,” Hero said.

They came to a stop in front of a narrow structure. It was not so much a storefront as a warren of windows and balconies built into the surface of the outer wall itself. Andras craned his neck up and shook his head. “Strange place for a book collector.”

“Ms. McAllister will be waiting for you in her study.” Their guide reached a small door and bowed low enough for his hat to practically scrape the sidewalk. “My colleague inside will show you up.”

Hero tilted his head. “You’re not seeing us in?”

“Alas, I am not. This one must see to new arrivals at the gates. Please to have a pleasant day, my friends.”

The strange little man swept back a step and hurried down the street. They watched him disappear around the corner before they turned to stare at the door ajar before them. Hero gave a weighty look to Claire, but she held up a flat palm.

“Don’t even say it, Hero.”

Past the door, they stepped into a small, tidily appointed kind of foyer. Leto blinked for his eyes to adjust to the dim, while breathing a sigh of relief after escaping the heat. The thick walls served a purpose: the interior was much cooler than the sweltering street.

He’d just started to relax when an intimidating wall of muscle stepped forward. The bodyguard introduced himself as Murdock but made little effort to communicate exactly who McAllister was or how they had come to be chosen for the honor of a tour. He instead gestured to a cramped staircase and politely requested they follow, as if there were a choice.

The staircase was crooked and narrow, made for someone of a much smaller stature than anyone in their group. They spilled out onto a landing, where the floor was composed of the same stuff as the walls, pale sandstone and painted plaster.

“Ms. McAllister will see you.” Murdock stepped to the side at the wide double doors at the other end of the landing. The walls were smooth and windowless, leaving the doors in a smudge of a shadow. The air tasted a little stale, of paper and salt. The absence of sunlight, which had been a cool relief before, suddenly ticked an ominous feeling up Leto’s arms.

“Well, so glad this doesn’t feel at all like a trap.” Hero crossed his arms and his fingers played at the pocket where he’d stuffed his gun.

“Which part, the deserted mansion or the big goon?” Leto said.

“Be that as it may, the song does lead here,” Claire said, “trap or not. We’re going in for the codex.”

Hero snorted. “Well, as long as we have a plan, then.”

Claire straightened her shoulders and strode forward. Her hand rested on an antique doorknob just a moment before pushing one of the doors wide open and advancing through.

Leto followed close at her heels, not willing to be left behind with Murdock. Beyond the doors, the space opened onto an expansive, brightly lit study. Exactly the opposite of the landing. Sunlight pooled in from numerous tall windows and fell over walls of glass-covered bookcases holding what looked to be very old and very expensive leather-bound manuscripts. Oversized leather chairs were grouped in corners, and a desk much like Claire’s massive station in the Library was positioned at the center of the wall of windows. The air still carried traces of a recent pot of tea.

Leto released his held breath. It was a cheery kind of clutter, books and comfort. Perhaps this collector would be a friend. Things would work out.

The collector in question stood by a window, evidently absorbed with the book in her hands. She was as tall as Hero but rich and solid, where Hero was pale and light—walnut and oak rather than ivory and bronze. She was dressed in simple slacks and a button-up shirt, rolled up to reveal forearms speckled with faded ink. There was something familiar about her sharp face that Leto couldn’t place, but her narrow gaze was softened by what seemed like warm brown eyes.

Hero brushed past him, drawing Leto’s attention, and stopped just shy of Claire’s shoulder.

“Warden?” Hero’s question was barely a whisper, and Leto saw why. Tension snapped along her back, and the muscles in her jaw clenched into a snarl as she focused on the collector. It was a fury tinted with shock and fear, and suddenly Leto knew nothing would be okay.

The woman collector made no effort to move, but her soft smile tightened. “Hello, Librarian.”

The silence stretched, long enough for Leto’s nerves to sing in confusion. There didn’t seem to be any threat. A quick glance said Andras and Hero were as confused as he was. Claire drew a jagged breath, and Leto turned hopefully for an explanation, a rationale that would—

Then Claire yanked the pistol out of Hero’s coat pocket and pivoted to aim, and all hell broke loose.

The gunshot deafened everyone in the room. A flower bloomed on the stranger’s throat, not red but impossibly dark—blood was supposed to be bright, Leto thought distantly—and she made a single quivering entreaty with her hand before she hit the floor. Everything was suspended in the moment of that gunshot. It was thunder and silence. All Leto could hear was the wheeze of shock that got tangled somewhere in his throat.

The black blood began to seep from beneath the collector’s ear, reaching into the dusty carpet like pitch fingers. Grasping for his feet, rooting him to the floor. The book that the woman had been reading had landed near her feet. Its pages were twisted and bent underneath its spine, like broken legs. It felt indecent, to Leto. He wanted to fix it. His feet wouldn’t move.

Claire tossed the gun back to Hero and turned away. “The pages are here. Lock the door and search.”

THE TIDES OF THE lake sloshed and shoved against the shore. The grinding churn in the air might have been the wear of water against gravel, or Uriel’s teeth. “You can track them,” Uriel gritted out. It was an order, not a question.