The Library of the Unwritten - A. J_ Hackwith Page 0,60
was the one who’d dragged him along. She told herself it was necessary.
It was his choice if he wanted to change. It came with a strange, guilty foreboding, the idea of giving a character a choice again. Of making that mistake again.
“It can’t do any more harm than has already been done.” Claire finally settled on an adequate response.
“Bah!” Bjorn threw up his hands. “Sorry excuse for a party, this is. Just tell me why your apprentice hauled me out of my cups before dawn.”
“Answers, Bjorn. You owe us some, and we don’t intend to wait while you sleep off a hangover.” Claire fished in her pockets until she came up with the Codex Gigas scrap. “You’ve guessed why we’re here.”
Bjorn hissed, shrill like a teakettle. He shoved Claire’s wrist back into her pocket. “Don’t bring that thing out here.” Claire raised her brows and trailed her gaze down to his hand. Bjorn released her with a sigh. “That thing’s brought me nothing but trouble.”
“And yet you seem to have done a shoddy job of ridding the world of it,” Andras observed. Bjorn wheeled on him.
“Destroying it was your predecessor’s job, demon. Not mine. Direct your bellyaching to him. I was just supposed to find the bloody thing,” the storyteller said. He paused to fetch his half-empty mug of ale before continuing. “You must already know about the missing pages, then.”
“Yes,” Claire said before Andras could cast the acid she saw brewing on his lips. “It appears they’ve turned up in the world again. It’s very important that we locate them before any other . . . interested parties.”
“You mean Heaven, eh.” Bjorn did not phrase it as a question, and no one bothered to answer it. “That lot never did understand books. Well, I tracked the book the first time just as you would. The Arcanist brought me in because it was a book. It wasn’t part of my library, but she and I collaborated and created a calling card for the task. Tricky bit of magic, if I do say so myself.”
Claire was desperate enough to entertain hope. “You still have this calling card?”
“Why would I do a fool thing like that?”
“Call it a hunch.” Claire flicked her free hand at the catastrophic clutter around them. “You don’t seem like the type to get rid of anything.”
Bjorn’s fist tightened in his beard and he sighed. “Something wasn’t right. The way the old skinflint was acting about it. Hiding a thing like that on Earth. I mighta held on to a scrap, but it will do you no good. It’s too damaged to give a location.”
Claire’s hopes fell. “There’s no other way to track it?”
“Not by Library means, no.” Bjorn frowned into his mug. The logs in the fire ticked before he seemed to decide something. “But it’s not a book of the Library, not unwritten—it’s a book of the realms. There are means outside the Library.”
Brevity handed Claire her tea and crinkled her brow. “How’s that possible?”
Bjorn chuckled. “Which do you think came first, little apprentice? Books or tales? It’s like I told your senior before. The first library was a song. I daresay I’ve learned more about the sound of a story since I came to Valhalla.”
Claire could tell the old man was dancing around something he wasn’t exactly eager to share. “So, there is a way to track it. Out with it, Bjorn. Please.”
Bjorn pressed his wrinkled lips together. “There’s more to a story than just its pages. Yes, put together with my fragment, if that little paper of yours cooperates, you might have a way to go. But you’re not going to like what it takes.”
“The best stories are bled,” Claire muttered, almost like a chant, before shrugging. “I’ll do what’s necessary.”
Bjorn’s eyes dropped to the bag on her hip. “You have to give up your books until you find it.”
Claire nearly snorted into her tea, and she set the mug down carefully. “I beg your pardon? Not more of this duel nonsense—”
“Not for a duel, Librarian. Until you locate your quarry, you have to leave your books. It won’t work otherwise.”
“The notes I brought are the only tools I’ll have in the mortal world. You’re asking us to continue on completely defenseless. With two violent representatives from Heaven at our backs.” Claire narrowed her eyes. “You’re going to have to explain a bit more than that.”
“The voice of the book. The music—the song of the tale.” Bjorn paused with a glance toward Leto and