A Hackwith - The Library of the Unwritten

Whatever else would happen due to her rash invocation of the Library, she could fix one book.

Feeling returned to her fingertips and she rubbed out the tingles as she dug through the drawer for the binding paste. Claire startled when Rami cleared his throat. The fallen angel slouched against a bookcase, deep in the collar of his feathered coat. His broad olive features, usually grim and sure, held an uncertain, shy question as he looked at her.

“Leto passed the pearly gates?” Claire asked.

“With flying colors,” Rami said. “He seemed a little put off at the idea of paradise. It won’t surprise me if he’s running Purgatory within the month.”

The thought made the hollow in Claire’s chest warm, mending a little. “That’s… good.”

A whisper of a smile was there, then gone. “I’m sorry you didn’t have longer with him. If you like, I could try to find the records, see if he was—”

“No. Andras as much as confirmed it, and…” Claire hesitated. “He’s where he’s supposed to be now. As am I.”

A stymied emotion settled in Rami’s frown. Claire was new to the company of angels, but she had begun to suspect his innate sense of justice was frequently going to run smack against her desire to be left alone. She sighed. “What?”

“In Mdina—Brevity mentioned you left behind someone dear. If you like, I could—”

Beatrice. Claire’s fingers seized up painfully. She cursed and rubbed her knuckles, forcing herself to breathe slowly through her nose. Beatrice had sacrificed herself. Yet, if the labyrinth’s blasted portals could be believed, she escaped. Might have escaped. No one knew whether Beatrice still existed, book or woman. Bea always did like the allure of a mystery. Claire sighed.

“It’s a kind offer, but… no. Our stories are… separate now.”

Rami made a frustrated noise. “Still. It’s obvious you cared—”

“No trouble finding your way back, then?”

Rami accepted the diversion for what it was: a closed door. He shrugged. “No trouble. It appears… Hell accepts me.”

“How curious. His Pissypants doesn’t usually take to drifters. But then I hear you two have a history.” Claire softened the words with a nod to the pot on the caddy beside the desk. “Tea?”

“I prefer coffee, if you have it.”

Claire made a face. “Well, now you definitely can’t stay.”

Humor fell flat, as it often did for her. Rami’s gaze trailed to the materials on Claire’s desk. She saw it skim over the small ridge of books and land on the amber and gray dagger perched on the corner. The gleam of the blade seemed to wink at them.

“You’re really certain you caught all of him in that thing?”

Claire refused to divert her attention to the blade. Andras didn’t deserve it. “The parts that were trying to subjugate all of us, at least. If he can stage a coup from a scabbard, he deserves the whole realm.”

“But how did you do it?” Claire gave him an offended look, and Rami backtracked. “No offense intended, Claire, but you were limping and holding that sword like a dead fish when you ran after him.”

“Yes. I suppose if I keep my position, I should probably fix that training gap.” Claire ignored Rami’s alarm. “I can’t actually take all the credit. Andras made a fatal error. He angered the Library.”

“Even I know not to do that. Human dreams. Prickly.” A voice dusty as the grave made both Claire and Rami jump. The demon at the door padded toward them without invitation.

Rather than the archaic clothes that Andras wore, she was clad mostly in supple, flowing rose leathers, tooled with flowers and polished to a sheen. Wild hair the color of cold steel, unkempt and proud, bushed around a sharp face of worn tan skin. She looked like precisely everyone’s grandmother, if one’s grandmother kept the blood of her enemies under her nails.

“Malphas.” Claire said the name of the general of Hell’s armies on a sigh. Lucifer’s second-in-command; all of Hell knew her name better as a whisper.

Malphas gave a regal smile.

Claire crossed her arms with obvious resignation. “I stave off political intrigue, put down a coup for Hell, and he couldn’t even be bothered to come himself?”

“You don’t seem happy to see me, kiddo.” Malphas’s eyes were gold like Andras’s, but they lacked even the artificial warmth of his. She was cold and ancient as burial iron. Other demons called her the War Crone, and it suited. Mother of war, grandmother of death. As she approached, her leathers became less rose colored and more a shade of blood-soaked hide. Loss flowed like a river around her. She flicked a glance around the ravaged Library lobby. “If this is what ‘staved off’ looks like, I advise you not to enter politics.”

“Saints preserve me from such a fate,” Claire said just to watch Malphas frown.

Malphas’s eyes slid over Rami. A hook of a smile appeared. “Ramiel. I thought Heaven’s warhorse had been tamed into a mule. What are you doing here?”

“I keep my own business.” Ramiel’s words were stilted.

Claire risked a glance. She’d always considered the fallen angel a stiff soldier type, but this was new. He stood ramrod straight, his large, calloused hands clenched at his thighs, with the prey’s instinct that complete stillness was the only way to avoid drawing unwanted attention. Malphas had that effect on longtime acquaintances.

“I see you two know each other,” Claire murmured. She waited until Malphas stopped at the edge of her desk. “If you came for a debrief, we don’t have a final tally on the damages yet.”

Malphas waved that off, as if the domain of numbers and loss was for weaker minds. “I came to see for myself this codex . Something that made Andras finally show his hand must be powerful.”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible.”

Malphas caught the flat note in Claire’s voice, and the crow’s-feet at the corners of her eyes tightened speculatively. “You’re too intelligent to defy me. Do you mean the pages are already destroyed?”

“Is that what a good librarian would do?” Claire met Malphas’s level gaze. “The Library is secure and Lucifer’s secrets are safe. You can tell the court that.”

“Yes…” Malphas’s lips thinned before transforming into a positively terrifying gentle smile as her eyes landed on the dagger, concern forgotten. “Such a compact little prison. Precious.”

Claire stifled a groan at the affectation. The gentler Malphas became, the bigger the ball of dread grew in her stomach. Rami twitched and drew closer behind her. “In a way. I’m not certain on the specifics of how Andras created it, but it captures a being. Just not the one he intended,” Claire said.

“Andras always had a better mind for deception than strategy. I was the one to toss him out the first time, you know.” Malphas plucked up the blade, holding it this way and that. “A useless weapon, but the court will have a trophy.”

“You mean the Arcane Wing,” Claire corrected her, earning a flash of warning displeasure. Malphas was a long-standing, revered general. The War Crone had no enemies, because her enemies were all dead. Claire kept her thoughts from her face. “It is an artifact of the Library’s Arcane Wing and belongs there. That doesn’t change just because there’s a demon in it now.”

Malphas considered. Bony fingers, hard as granite and with blackened nails, tapped along the edge of the blade. “Our lord has ways of dealing with failed rebellions.”

“Failed,” of course, was the key word. Claire knew Lucifer encouraged the plotting and backstabbing in the court as a way to keep his most powerful demons distracted. With a general like Malphas safeguarding his throne, he could afford the chaos. “And if His Vilest would like to come and extract Andras’s soul for punishment, he’s welcome. But until there’s a new Arcanist in place, I’m sure Lucifer would agree that my charge is to guarantee no artifacts wander off the inventory.”