The Archive of the Forgotten (Hell's Library #2) - A. J. Hackwith Page 0,124

the same. Books and authors are made of the same stuff.” Rami shook his head wonderingly. “I wondered, as an angel I can reach lost souls, and then it seemed too dire to not at least try . . .”

Rami trailed off, but the logical leap was too much for Hero’s mind to make. Books didn’t have souls. They had characters and pages and story, and good ones might seem soulful, but books were—Hero was . . .

Hero wasn’t sure of anything anymore. He looked away. Most of the jet-black ink had flaked away from Claire’s skin, even if a mythical kind of oil-slick shine clung to her tangled hair. She seemed merely napping against Rami’s chest, more peaceful than Hero had ever seen her. “Do you think they knew? All this time?”

Rami considered and shook his head. “I don’t know. But I do know we should get them out of here. Let’s go home.” He lifted Claire easily, even if he was slower to get his feet under him. Whatever he had done had worn on the angel as well. Brevity was light enough that Hero had no such trouble.

“I’m—I’m glad you’re okay,” Rami said quietly. He took his time drawing a feather. It made a complicated pattern through the air in what Hero assumed would be a means to travel back to the Library. “I heard part of what you said. To Probity.”

“Did you? How distracting.” Hero shifted Brevity in his arms and stepped closer under Rami’s arm without quite looking him in the eyes. “Of course I’m fine. Always fine.”

Rami was terrible at telling lies, but not at reading them. Hero could feel the weight of his concerned frown as feathers and the frost-clean smell of Rami’s angelic magic kicked up through the dust. His voice was soft and lost in Hero’s hair. “I’m glad. I was afraid this—this was going to change things.”

It already has, Hero wanted to say, but the Dust Wing folded in on itself and the sweep of Rami’s sheltering magic stole the air from his lungs.

37

HERO

I still feel the place in my chest where my story should be.

—My book. I meant my book. Where my book should be. That’s what I meant.

Where is a goddamn eraser for this log?

Apprentice Librarian Hero, 2020 CE

HERO KNEW HOW STORIES began. Once upon a time. After hundreds of Dust Wing books passed through him, he even understood how stories end. Happily ever after. Except when not. Nothing had prepared him for the agony of the middle. The hollow pocket against his heart where his book should be was a great, aching question mark. It was an end; it was a beginning; it was wrong and completely foreign terrain.

If this was what it was like living outside a story, Hero thought maybe death had been kinder. He had these thoughts as Rami swam them in and out of the dark, tripping across nowheres and in-betweens until the familiar glass zoo of Walter’s transport office took shape around them. He walked down familiar hallways and thought of endings and beginnings and the terrifying watercolor of unknowns that spanned the two. He thought of Rami and Claire and Brevity, and the fragile way they kept going on after the end. And then he said the exact opposite of what he was thinking.

“Well, this is familiar,” Hero pronounced as he followed Ramiel through the doors of the Arcane Wing. Rami strode to the nearest couch and laid Claire down with a painstaking gentleness.

An elbow shifted into his ribs. “I’m awake this time.” Brevity’s words were a slurry of exhaustion. She’d started to stir not long after they’d reappeared in the transport office. She looked pale and grumpy. “Put me down, please.”

“My pleasure.” Hero picked the armchair and carefully extracted himself until Brevity was in a somewhat comfortable sitting position. “It’s my personal policy not to coddle suicidal idiots.”

“I would say everyone present falls under that classification,” Rami said with a level look in Hero’s direction.

“I saved your life.” Hero had begun making tea without realizing it. He stopped, glared into the teapot in his hands, and chose a relaxing chamomile. Claire would hate it when she woke up. When.

The water had heated to a near simmer by the time Brevity heaved herself up on her elbows, as if taking stock. “We should be in the Unwritten Wing.”

“I didn’t think it prudent to bring you in proximity to the books until I knew you were all stable,” Rami said evasively.