The Library of the Unwritten - A. J_ Hackwith Page 0,72

to locate the thing?” Andras asked.

“I can.” Claire’s hand waved vaguely to the northeast, where past the city walls they could see cobblestones falling away to rolling, dry countryside. “It’s that way, but we can’t exactly set out cross-country without knowing how far. I still can’t understand why the path couldn’t get us closer.”

Leto’s attention had turned back to the tourist board. A map was printed in bright colors, dotted regularly with saccharine-cute icons of desirable landmarks for tourists. His fingers drifted away from the “You Are Here” mark. “Could it be Mdina?”

Claire squinted over his shoulder. “Possibly. Or it could be anywhere in the countryside. Impossible to say without getting closer.”

“There’s a tour bus that goes that way.” Leto pointed to a thick blue line.

Claire cast a wary glance at the stable of buses that roosted along the street farther down and spared an aggrieved thought for her missing bag. “As much as you’d like to play tourist, Leto, you forget—I don’t have my books anymore to fake a fare or spin a story.”

Sure enough, a steady line of dawdling tourists was purchasing paper stubs, which they handed to the bus attendant as they got on. Claire could feel Leto’s mind turning as he searched over the crowds before stopping. “Maybe we still have something. Ma’am, may I borrow Hero?”

“Borrow me?” Hero echoed.

“Not all of you.” Leto gave him a positively cheeky grin and tugged him by one arm with growing confidence. “Just need your smile.”

21

LETO

There are cracks in the world. It’s how artifacts fall through to the Arcane Wing. It’s how muses slip through on strains of half-remembered songs. The world is permeable, and so is the mind.

There are small cracks in the world, and there are large ones. I hope you found one to hide you, B. To hide you completely.

I never want to see you again.

Librarian Claire Hadley, 1989 CE

“THAT WAS HUMILIATING,” HERO muttered.

“Look at it this way—you made her day.” Leto swayed with the rock of the bus and felt a grin threatening to escape. It felt strange, made his cheeks hurt. He couldn’t remember, of course, but it felt like something he hadn’t done for a while. A buoyant feeling tugged up inside him, smothering the other stuff—the demon stuff—for a moment. It had helped him start to remember things, human things. Like teenage girls and the internet.

Which was handy in forcing a flustered Hero to sweet-talk the ticket vendor. He’d helped Claire, and more important, it was fun.

Leto was having fun. He was pretty sure that wasn’t something demons were allowed to do. It was a satisfying kind of scandal.

“She propositioned me!” Hero wailed. “As if I would like to go for a tumble like some cheap—”

“She asked if you were on Tumblr. You should take it as a compliment; girls never want to share their Tumblrs with guys. Jeez, relax.” Leto paused with a thought. “Maybe when we get back to the Library, we should find you guys some unwritten books on the internet. There’s got to be something Doctorow didn’t get around to, maybe. Wait—does the Library even get Wi-Fi?”

He turned to Claire for an answer, but the librarian was hunched in her seat, staring out the window at the hard clay furrows that rushed by. Leto wasn’t precisely sure where Malta even was, besides on Earth, but it was sweltering. And that said a lot, since he’d come from Hell. Heat split the roadway, and the tour bus’s sad excuse for shocks transmitted every pothole into a teeth-shattering bass line. Leto, and everyone else on the bus, clung to his seat for dear life.

Everyone except Claire. The “song” she was tracking appeared to be giving her trouble. She swayed with the bus, eyes closed and lips pressed in concentration. After she nearly toppled for the third turn in a row, Hero muttered something sharp under his breath. He shoved her into a free seat, neatly ignoring the death glare Claire pinned on him.

They passed more hard-baked fields, dusty war memorials, artist enclaves, before finally curling around a hill toward an ancient walled city. Claire let out a short breath and her eyes flew open again. “Here.”

Andras squinted at the sign lit up over the driver’s head. “Mdina, just as the stray guessed. You’re certain?”

“The stray has a name, you know,” Leto said.

Claire nodded as her eyes roamed out the window, unfocused. “It’s here.”

They piled out of the bus with the rest of the tourists. They were in a flat