The Archive of the Forgotten (Hell's Library #2) - A. J. Hackwith Page 0,18

of furniture he couldn’t lounge against. “I guess I should be grateful you lot even know cursive.”

“There’s nothing innately better about something just because it’s old,” Brevity said.

“Precisely,” Claire murmured, squinting as she concentrated on touching the pen nib just to the surface of the liquid in the vial. It wicked up the groove, just as ink should. And colors rippled and fluttered across the metal, just as ink should not. Hero’s eyes lit up, an intense speculation sparking in his eyes as he considered the liquid. It was a relief when Probity gave a low whistle and raised her eyes to meet Brevity’s. She reveled in the affirmation, someone else seeing what see saw, for a change. Being the only former muse in the room was so exhausting sometimes.

Claire withdrew the nib and gave Brevity an inquiring glance, pen hovering over the paper. Claire, with a fountain pen in her hand again. Nib loaded with ink, clutched—carefully—in a black-stained hand. It felt wrong. A chill crept up Brevity’s neck, and she nodded quicker than she needed to dispel it. Claire took a breath and lowered the pen. The colors whipped over her hand like mist, the tip of the nib touched the logbook’s parchment, and several things happened in a breath.

The nib touched the page.

Hero drew in a pinched gasp and stepped back just as Rami stepped forward.

And the logbook began to smoke.

Claire began a downward stroke with the pen, but the liquid moved of its own accord. It wicked deep into the parchment and pulled away from the nib. Black veins crept spiderwebs across the page on their own, tendrils encountering the edge and seeming to pulse once before the entire linework recoiled again. The veins left faint wisps of smoke and the air began to smell of burnt turpentine, as if the ink had been burned both in and out of the parchment hide. The ink coiled lazily, like an indecisive snake, splitting into fractal triskeles, then conjoined.

Then writing began.

“What . . .” Claire was frozen, pen to page as if she was afraid to break contact. Letters—script, Hero had called it, and Brevity could see the difference now, not calling this simple cursive—spun out across the page. Not in a continuous line of thought, but fragments, the ink seeming to jump from one thought to the next. Brevity could follow it all, not so much by the words but by the colors that burst, like quick-fading comets, through the smoke. A snippet of dialogue, a soft sunset, a warp of stars, a clang of swords, a shattered planet, a sigh against skin. The script filled the page, the ink seeming to multiply on itself. But it didn’t stop there; words crisscrossed, mashed, and fought where they intersected. Epilogue versus eponyms. Protagonist versus peril. Pivot versus plot. It filled up the page, blackening without stopping until the ink sopped through the parchment entirely. Still there were words, dreadful, impossible snatches of story that writhed and crested on the page like a swarm. Breaking, forming, breaking again. Over and over, splinters of stories without end.

Iron and anise weltered in her mouth, searing her tongue. Brevity felt pulled, as if she was falling into the ink. The book had become a gateway, a door of potential, and if she just reached, reached, reached—

She heard a strangled shriek. The ink disappeared. When had she stepped closer to the desk? She didn’t remember raising her hand, fingertips drifting toward the page. Claire shoved Brevity back, and the fountain pen went clattering across the floor. The logbook was still open, but its page was a creamy ivory expanse. No ink, no script, just the faint waft of turpentine and a wisp of smoke rising slowly off the page.

Claire dropped heavily onto the edge of the desk. The hand she put up to her face was trembling. It was her left hand. Her right hand was clutched into a protective black fist against her stomach. Brevity herself was trembling, she just realized. She turned away and sought out Probity’s face. Her expression was cracked open with a soft wonder. She offered a hand and met Brevity’s gaze as if they’d just witnessed the holiest of miracles. Brevity scanned the floor before finding where the pen had rolled underneath an overstuffed chair. She picked it up and held the nib under the light. Whistle clean and shiny as brass, no ink.

Disappointment lurched in her stomach for no reason she could think of. They still