The Archive of the Forgotten (Hell's Library #2) - A. J. Hackwith Page 0,12

meant to himself or the future of his book. He rolled the teacup in his palms. “Heaven truly lost a master strategist when you fell.”

“I was a soldier,” Ramiel said simply. He didn’t rise to the bait; he never did. He had an infuriating habit of looking at Hero, obviously finding him wanting, and gliding past as if he and he alone had some greater purpose. As if an insult from Hero was not even worth his concern.

Hero’s insults were worth a king’s ransom, damn it. It was perhaps the only value he could rely on these days.

Whatever Ramiel had been, he was an assistant now, just like Hero. That made them vaguely equals, he reminded himself. Allies, even. That moment with Rami backing him up with Probity had been nice. Had potential. Somewhere in the back of Hero’s mind was a distant plan starting to shuffle into view, but it veered too close to thinking about things he didn’t want to consider right now. He set it aside in favor of prodding the fallen angel.

“And I was a rebellion leader and a king, facts that did no one a flick of good when magic ink we don’t understand decided to start eating our Arcanist.” That sentence had lost steam somewhere in the middle, and rather than feeling like a vicious stab, it just left Hero with a queasy feeling of worry. It was an unnatural and unwelcome sensation. Another thing to blame Claire for, when she woke up.

If there was a sport he had trained for, it was guilt bearing. Rami heaved a sigh, proving he was already the champion. “You’re right, for once.” He leaned forward, intent. “So, what is it?”

Hero choked on his tea. “What is what?”

“The ink.” Rami’s brows created great trenches of concern above his silver eyes. It was unnerving when they focused entirely on you. “The muse seemed to think it was ink. Ink is the thing of books. So how does it work . . . ?”

Surely Hero must have the answers. What kind of book didn’t know what he was made of, after all? Perhaps it was like other things he knew without knowing: the shape of a story, the wrongness of his book without him, the shiver a book had when it was close to waking up a character. He thought about the ink and reached for that well of intuition that always spouted up, from nowhere, to catch him where he fell short.

Nothing caught this particular free fall. He knew nothing. He knew nothing at all. The idea that a story survived in the ink was no more or less ridiculous than anything else he’d suffered, but it stung somehow. He should know. What kind of character was he? Hero covered the dip in his stomach with a scoff and drained the last of his tea in one swig. “It’s a ridiculous question. Shall I ask you how your feathers work?”

Rami’s mood lightened to something approaching earnest interest. “Celestial dynamics is straightforward to understand, really. If you compare it to the aerodynamics of earth-born birds—”

“Please stop talking.” Hero buried his face in his hands. Everyone told him to do the same often enough: stop talking. This was a punishment, wasn’t it? Was he being punished? Taunted by an ignorant angelic jock and a pool of black liquid potential that should have shown him a reflection where he only saw a question mark? It was wicked and devious, even for Hell.

Hero considered it a minor miracle, then, when Brevity burst out of the gloom of the stacks like an ambitious sunrise, trailed by a curious gaggle of muses and—the knot in Hero’s chest eased a little—a drawn-looking Claire. Ink-stained, hunted-looking, but awake.

“Claire’s okay, I’m okay, et cetera and so on—” Brevity impatiently headed off their questions. “We got an idea. A really awful idea, but, well— Rami, Hero, on your feet.”

4

CLAIRE

Repaired another cover today. The leather had begun to wear along the rail line. I wonder why the books choose leather. It’s not as if there are hell-cows for hide, are there? (Are there?) They could be clapboard- or linen-covered hardbacks or—saints forbid—paperback. But it’s leather, tanned leather.

An early method of preparing leather for book covers was to cure it covered in wet tea leaves and bark—tanning comes from the word “tannins.” Tea and words have always been steeped together, down to the bones. I preferred coffee when I was alive, but Claire drinks this stuff by the pot: to