A Hackwith - The Library of the Unwritten

Duty, service. It was an all-curing elixir, for angels. Especially angels like Uriel. The tracks on her face dried. She seemed to sew the broken edges of her mask together, piece by piece. She drew up straight, and her gaze came to rest on the spot where Andras had disappeared. “Our prey has split. The demon is intent on taking the pages to the Library, so I will make the necessary preparations for Hell. You will track the humans. It’s what you’re best at. The Hounds will leave a wide enough path; perhaps they will lead us to the codex.”

Rami strained to keep the uncertainty off his face. “And then?”

“And then…” Uriel paused to marshal her own sword. She stared at the blackened spot where it had been planted in the cobblestone. “Then all of Hell will have its reckoning.”

LETO WAS REMEMBERING THINGS about his life.

Mostly he was remembering that he hated running.

His side had stitched up, morphing into an angry, hot pinch that twisted his lungs every time he inhaled. His pulse thudded, fast and thick in his head. His feet were numb from slapping bare stone, and that made him clumsy as he clambered up and down the broken tunnel passage.

Catacombs, Beatrice had said, and Leto had imagined some stately mausoleum. Perhaps a stone building, statues artfully crumbling here and there, coincidentally lit with a mysterious torch like they were in the movies. But this was something entirely different. It was a hole in the ground that forgot to stop. It was a crooked path daggered with roots and stone and other objects that Leto tried not to consider too closely as he tripped over them. Bare crevices had been cut out of the dirt walls and held scattered bones and bits of cloth. All of this was illuminated not by thoughtful torches but by his single flashlight, splashing quivering light around as he ran.

It was a place, most important, that Leto very much did not want to die in. So he ran, scrabbling at dirt and stone and cowering every time a shower of dust fell from overhead.

The others had set out to create a diversion outside the ward to draw off the Hellhounds long enough for Leto to get to the realm gate via a second path. Claire assured him she would be fine and would catch up with him later in the realm beyond the gates. All Leto had to do was keep moving.

Leto hadn’t believed a word of it. He’d been around the librarian enough by now to see her fear. But it was his own fear, his own shameful, crippling terror at the sound of the Hellhounds, that had made him nod. It was his fear that agreed to the plan. He’d meant to follow her. Follow her forward , he’d said. But instead his courage had failed him yet again and left him here, hurtling through the dark.

He hadn’t told all that to Beatrice. The unwritten woman had not been happy when Leto finally relayed Claire’s plan. She’d been distressed enough when Claire and the others had left, but when Leto explained that Claire had been suspicious of Andras and had asked Leto to carry the codex pages to Hell, Beatrice had flown into a barely contained panic. She’d stormed around the apartment and seemed quite ready to bolt after the others until Leto had added something: that Claire had said to get him through the gate, then check the outer ward for the others. Just in case.

Well. He’d said that was what she’d said. He’d improvised, ashamed of leaving Claire and Hero to do the hard part. The least he could do was send Beatrice as backup. Beatrice hadn’t needed convincing. She had regrets too. Hanging around unwritten authors had taught Leto a lot about the words one didn’t say.

They’d gotten to the cramped entrance, hidden in the sewers not far from the fountain he’d seen earlier, when Beatrice’s conscience caught up with her. She stopped abruptly at the door. Her hands flew to her head and she grunted.

“I can’t. I can’t do this , not again.”

“But Claire said to get the pages to the gate first—”

“I can’t leave her to face the consequences alone. Not again.” Beatrice’s hands fisted in her hair before dropping, still clenched with tension. She seemed to come to a decision. “I’m going after her. You can make it from here. Now, listen closely.”

Leto repeated Beatrice’s instructions in his head. Follow the tunnel, veer right when it splits, keep going, no matter what. He’d been going for a while now and was surely outside the walls, outside the ward. But being underground, among the dead, would confuse and slow the Hellhounds, Beatrice had said.

Not long enough to save him, if it came to that, but long enough for him to run, which was the important thing: to run. When Leto reached the end, Beatrice said, he would see the realm gate.

If there was an end, Leto hadn’t found it. He began to worry he’d missed a right turn somewhere in the dark. He took another aimless corner and was about to consider turning back, when a stone outcropping caught him on the shoulder.

Stone in the shape of a fist.

A hand slammed Leto against a wall, and his flashlight flew out of his grasp. Leto’s head jolted against hard-packed dirt, and stars briefly dazzled the dark. When they cleared, he couldn’t see anything—at first. Slowly, two pricks of gold light resolved out of the darkness. A gem-shaped light flared, stabbing painfully at his eyes, and Andras’s face melted into view.

“Hello, stray.”

The demon had shed all previous pretense in the dark, keeping only gaunt features, harsh and cutting edges. A sharp-toothed smile split a skull-like face, and the shadows danced wildly as he adjusted his grip. Cold, bony fingers squeezed Leto’s throat closed.

The fingers constricted again and slammed Leto’s head against the wall. Pain flickered from a spark to wildfire. Everything went gray this time. When Leto could open his eyes again, Andras was shuffling through his pockets.

He had located the folded sheaves of parchment in Leto’s suit. There was no more explanation; Andras simply took what he wanted. Leto struggled even as the world tilted hazily around him. But Andras batted his hand aside easily and tucked the codex pages in his own pocket. He made a tutting noise under his breath.

“This is mine. As is this. See?” Andras held up a thick gem, set into the small dagger that he’d offered to the ravens. That seemed like ages ago. It glittered, matching all the other gems and ornaments pinned to Andras’s clothing. Leto had assumed it was for show, some old-fashioned vanity, but now he saw how wrong he was. Each bauble glimmered independent of the light. Relics from the Arcane Wing, he realized. In the dim light of another gem—Leto couldn’t make out the color or cut—the dagger handle in Andras’s palm pulsed with energy. Something moved and bubbled beneath the stone’s surface, like a predator in deep water. Leto recoiled without thinking, earning a chuckle from the demon.

“A simple soul gem. Perhaps you recognize it. It’s a cousin of the ghostlight. It also latches onto a dead soul, but this one consumes.”

Leto couldn’t tell if the movement in the stone was increasing or if it was just a trick of the wildly flickering light. He tried to pull away out of instinct. A clawlike thumbnail caught under Leto’s throat, pressing until the skin was taut. A pleased chuckling sound came from the demon. “I could have used this against you, against all of you, at any moment during our time together. I didn’t, for Claire’s sake. I want you to tell Claire that. Give my pup a message. Tell her to stay away from the Library.”