The Library of the Unwritten - A. J_ Hackwith Page 0,76

of that gunshot. It was thunder and silence. All Leto could hear was the wheeze of shock that got tangled somewhere in his throat.

The black blood began to seep from beneath the collector’s ear, reaching into the dusty carpet like pitch fingers. Grasping for his feet, rooting him to the floor. The book that the woman had been reading had landed near her feet. Its pages were twisted and bent underneath its spine, like broken legs. It felt indecent, to Leto. He wanted to fix it. His feet wouldn’t move.

Claire tossed the gun back to Hero and turned away. “The pages are here. Lock the door and search.”

22

RAMIEL

You’ll miss the world. That’s fair; it used to be yours. But there’s a reason we don’t get to travel freely among the living, even as librarians. The Earth is not meant for someone who can’t treasure it. Time makes us clumsy, dulls our senses. Live too far past your tombstone, and you turn a bit stone yourself.

Nothing burns up humanity as thoroughly as eternity.

One supposes that’s why librarian is not a permanent position. We need to retain ourselves, retain our souls, if we’re going to be any good to the books. My apprentice has an abundance of soul. That’ll make her a good librarian. That will also make her an unhappy one.

Librarian Gregor Henry, 1986 CE

THE TIDES OF THE lake sloshed and shoved against the shore. The grinding churn in the air might have been the wear of water against gravel, or Uriel’s teeth. “You can track them,” Uriel gritted out. It was an order, not a question.

Rami nodded. “I can. I got a measure of her soul in Valhalla. If she’s lost anywhere on Earth, I can find her.” It wasn’t hard to judge where the librarian and her hellspawn would have gone. They’d taken the mists, the burial roads, and there was only one place those went—though usually in the opposite direction.

“Do it,” Uriel had said, already turning away from the shore. “I have business to attend to.”

“Business?” Rami blinked. “What business could be more important than the codex?”

The Valhalla sun was setting. Soon the realm would resurrect its dead, beginning the whole dreadful cycle again. The light hit Uriel askew as she turned, brightening her cap of white hair but turning the rest of her features into jagged relief. Her smile was slivered with shadow. “An opportunity for the bigger picture. You think too small, Ramiel.”

* * *

◆ ◆ ◆

IT TOOK TIME AND cost to trace a soul: a sacrifice of cold stars and the ashes from his own flight feathers. But in the end, when the knowledge surged through him, it felt familiar, like slipping into well-worn shoes, tracing the weave of lifelines to find the one dropped thread. As he took on the role he had been cast away from, it felt comfortable, and right, so right that it hurt when he released the power. Its departure left empty rivers in Rami, like indents on a violinist’s fingertips, useless when away from the strings.

But he had a location. He sent word and when he arrived in Malta, Uriel was already perched on a tumbled pile of sandstone outside the city. She paid no mind to the humans that occasionally filtered by below her, and though she was invisible to them, Rami was relieved she had moderated her appearance somewhat: a sparse cream-colored coat with a military cut instead of a robe, and her shining white hair dulled to a mortal blond. She’d shrunk a bit so she towered only a few spare inches over most humans. But the passing crowds still veered a wide berth around her. Nothing could hide her presence: she was the Face of God no matter what skin she wore, and right now that face was an intense, grit-teethed snarl.

Fists clenched at her sides as she stared at the entrance, as if she could bring the walls down with simply the force of her gaze. “They’re here?” she said as Rami stepped up and followed her eyes.

“Yes. The librarian’s soul is in Mdina.”

“With the demons,” Uriel bit out. Rami assumed she meant the librarian and her companions. The way she growled it made cold form in his stomach.

He picked a careful reply as he tried to suss out what plan Uriel had in mind. “Well, I’m surprised you waited for me, then.”

“Not as if I had much of a choice.” Uriel finally dropped her gaze away from the walls and sighed. “It’s