A Hackwith - The Library of the Unwritten

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 personality, 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.”

The moment the words were out of her mouth, Claire regretted them. Beatrice recoiled as if struck, lip curling into a startled scowl as she shoved herself away from the desk. She stumbled backward a step, losing her natural grace.

“Bugger.” Claire chewed hard on the inside of her cheek as she berated herself. Her hands stilled on the book. “Bea, I didn’t mean it like that.”

“I know how you meant it.” Beatrice’s voice was brittle.

“No, I meant—the way the world was when I was alive, the way my family was, I just meant—”

“I get it.” Beatrice’s jaw worked, and she refused to meet Claire’s eyes. “But the woman I loved wouldn’t have said it.”

The hurt simmered in the air, as bitter as ash. Guilt, oily and cold, settled in Claire’s stomach. She sighed, rubbing her nose a moment before pressing forward. “That’s the point exactly. I’m not that woman anymore. I’m not even the lonely soul that you enchanted in the Library. I am the librarian. I don’t need your protection or concern. It is unwelcome.”

Beatrice frowned down at the book on the desk between them, as if she suddenly found herself in a different story than she’d thought she was in. “It doesn’t matter who you are now. You said yourself Hell is—”

“If I decide I want to leave the Library, I will exit under my own resources. This is not a rescue. I am not your quest. I’m sorry.” Claire wasn’t used to trying to sound kind, but she tried for Beatrice.

She felt a mirrored hurt as the unwritten woman’s shoulders dropped. Beatrice turned away, sitting heavily on the edge of the desk. Tension sang in her back as she turned blank eyes out the window.

Claire waited a breath until she could be sure her voice would be steady before pushing the point. “ My quest is the lost pieces of the codex. Your repairs are nearly done—you can glue the cover yourself. Now, will you tell me where they are before all of Heaven and Hell falls down on us?”

Beatrice was still for a long moment, long enough for Claire to begin to doubt she was going to respond. Then she tilted her chin down in an imperceptible nod. “Check the back.”

Claire parsed the words a moment before the meaning dawned on her, and her mouth fell open. Her gaze dropped to the old unwritten book in her hands. She flipped the book over and thumbed through the back pages until a folded sheaf of even older papers fell out. “You kept them with your own book. So when you asked me to repair—”

Beatrice gave a cold, airless chuckle. “Even a fool knows where such dangerous things belong. You’re the only one I would trust with them. And with me.”

Like heat roiling off a fire, power whispered in the air around the pages, whispers of dark things, undone things. Claire stared a moment, then very carefully wrapped the edge of her skirts over the remaining pages of the Codex Gigas.