A Hackwith - The Library of the Unwritten

“I much prefer it to the alternative.” Hero rubbed the space between his eyes. “Not that it’s done me much good.”

“Yes, well… Women of a tender age don’t take to sudden breakups well.” Claire suppressed a smile. “If you weren’t a villain in her brain before, you certainly are now.”

He dropped his head to his knees and a dry chuckle rumbled in his chest before seeming to stutter and trip over itself. He looked up, alarmed. “Is that how it works? Did I— Was I fated to inspire my own author to make me a—”

Claire saw the gears threaten to spin off the tracks in his brain, and she couldn’t suppress the laughter that bubbled out. Hero stopped with a startled look, which only made Claire laugh more until she was drained. Too exhausted to be stern.

“Oh, Hero.” She shook her head. “Even the Library doesn’t know how stories are made. Or not made, in our case. Try to put together who you are, why you are… Well, that’s the path of madness.”

“I’m glad you find my existential crisis so entertaining, warden.” Hero’s voice was arch, but it was softened by the curve of his lips.

They fell into a tentative truce of quiet. The chill of the stone wall was seeping into her spine, and Claire shifted, trying to find a comfortable spot. It was going to be a long night. There was a glimmer as Hero’s eyes tracked her fidgeting.

“Do characters forget themselves, warden?”

“You should know better than anyone.”

“Not from damage, I mean. Can characters forget their stories for good?”

“What a curious question…” Claire frowned in his direction in the dark. “Why do you ask?”

Hero seemed to chew on his answer a moment. “When I—when we— Oh, bother, it’s annoying containing multitudes. I used to be part of the whole, speak for the whole book. I was the book. All of us, all our dreams, fears… even the bratty, idiotic heroes. But that’s begun to fade. I can’t feel the others anymore. I’m beginning to feel more and more… singular.”

Alone. Hero’s voice quieted as he said it, his eyes closed, as if he could dismiss the conversation through sleep if it became too uncomfortable.

He was afraid, Claire realized with a start. It must be a disquieting feeling, being alone in your own head for the first time. “You’re still a character tied to a book, but you’re also becoming an individual. Exposed to things other than your story, you may be changing from how you were written. It’s one of the reasons the Library quiets the characters that wake up.”

“Except damsels.”

“Except the occasional damsel, yes. But only after their author is already dead and gone, and there’s no risk of damaging a potential book,” Claire allowed. “They change, grow…. The damsels become people. I used to think only damsels did that, but you’re proving that wrong. There’s more to every one of us than what our story intends.”

Hero’s eyes slit open. “Is that why you defended me back there? You think you’ve tamed yourself a villain?”

“Not in the slightest.” Claire smiled as she made out the unwritten man’s startled expression in the dark. “It just doesn’t matter.”

“It doesn’t matter? What, in the philosophical ‘we’re all damned anyway’ sense?”

Claire shook her head. “Stories are, at the most basic level, how we make sense of the world. It doesn’t do to forget that sometimes heroes fail you when you need them the most. Sometimes you throw your lot in with villains. Neither Heaven nor Hell is very happy with us right now.” Claire leaned her head back. The weariness hit her all at once as she looked up at the strange configuration of stars that peeked through the ruins. They twinkled red and purple, she realized. Nothing was familiar in this place. “Whatever you are, your story’s still unwritten.”

Again, silence. She thought he’d nodded off, but then Hero spoke up quietly.

“Claire.”

“What now?”

“You’re not expecting a happy ending here, are you.” His words were a statement rather than a question.

The breath staggered in Claire’s throat. She kept her eyes closed. “No. Not since the ghostlights went out.” And not since Leto. There were things Claire still couldn’t say. “Maybe it ends well for the Library, if it’s still standing. Stop Andras, protect the Library. That’s what I intend to guarantee. But for me, no.”

“That’s a shame.”

“Indeed.”

Hero seemed to consider. “I don’t think I’m going to like mocking a different librarian. Maybe I’ll run away again.”

“You’ll do no such thing. Sleep.”

Whether Hero slept or not, he didn’t speak again. Claire listened to the far-off groans, felt the chill stone beneath her cheek, and almost regretted the silence. Almost asked Hero to start chattering again. But she didn’t, and eventually she slept and dreamed as she knew she would. Of bronze scales and red stories, and remembered books turned to forgotten graves.

DIM LIGHT PEEKED UNDER her eyelids. Claire woke up tasting dust and ozone on her tongue. The weird nontaste, nonsmell of a dead world. The sun hadn’t quite crested the tall labyrinth walls yet, leaving everything in the half-baked purple of dawn. The dead end was empty. That caused a shrill of panic, but when she turned her head, she saw Hero striding back down the passage.

Claire wiped a hand over her cheek. “What time is it?”

“Absolutely no idea,” Hero chirped, and shrugged. “You only slept for a couple hours. I figured you needed it.”

“You didn’t sleep?”

“The accommodations were a little sparse for my tastes. Soon as it started to get light, I took the opportunity to scout out the next intersection. Followed left to another dead end, so I suspect we can be rebels and go right without ruining your glorious left-handed strategy.”

Claire took in Hero’s appearance. His clothes were filthy. She suspected hers were as well. His aristocratic coat hung open, having lost a couple buttons somewhere between Valhalla and the literally godforsaken maze they found themselves in. He sported scratches on his hands and a welt on his cheek from their headlong tumult through the catacombs. He looked weary but approached none of the exhaustion and hopeless dread that Claire felt. Stories were always resilient in their own ways.

Authors, not so much. Claire still felt half-dead as she dragged a hand over her face. “You shouldn’t have wandered off alone. There’s something else in here with us. We heard it last night.”

Hero stopped in front of her. “Concerned for my safety, warden? I’m touched.”

“Merely concerned you’ll attract the beast to me. Or take a wild hair to run off again. Not sure I have the energy to chase you, to be honest.” But Claire said it with a weak smile. Hero offered his hand, and she allowed him to yank her to her feet.

“Perhaps breakfast will improve your mood. Slice of diabetes?” Hero opened his hand and offered her one of the tiny snack cakes that she’d seen him trying with Leto in the Mdina kitchen. It was perfectly preserved in cellophane, if a bit squished.

“We’ve been on the run for our souls, and you’ve been hiding cakes on your person?”

“What? It’s not as if anyone else thought to pack provisions.” Hero took offense. He began to close his hand, but Claire snatched the treat before he could withdraw it. She tore the wrapper and crumpled the cellophane into her pocket.

“I thought you hated sugar,” Claire mumbled around a mouthful of frosting, to which Hero shrugged.

“I suppose I’m still figuring out what I hate.”

“Where’d you learn a word like ‘diabetes,’ anyway? I thought your book was more fantasy based. Don’t tell me Brev had you read a medical text.”