The Archive of the Forgotten (Hell's Library #2) - A. J. Hackwith Page 0,34

she was seeing. But that would have lead inevitably to apparitions that conveniently only appeared to Claire, and she’d rather skip over the unnecessary subplot of questioning her sanity, thank you very much.

If the figure was real, then Claire needed to talk to them. If it was an illusion, then it was surely a cause of the ink that had stained her hand, somehow connected to unwritten stories. And stories could always be counted on for an inevitable flair for drama. Maintaining a sense of narrative wasn’t just a professional skill in the Library; it was a survival trait.

So Claire rubbed her stained wrist idly, prepared to be spooked, and marched down the aisle of shadows.

Floorboards creaked under her feet, and rows of shelves settled with a sigh as she passed by. It was all really a clichéd kind of effect, at least until she happened to glance at the artifacts nearest her.

Not all the artifacts of the Arcane Wing’s collection were made from routine materials. Mortals were nothing if not innovative. There was a particular subset of items made from ghoulish materials—skin, bone, and other identifiable human parts. Claire kept this collection toward the back of the wing. Not because of any unusual power or danger, but because it gave her the willies. That’s what she’d told Rami. In truth, the lines of finger bones and skulls reminded her too much of the underground tombs of Malta.

Her eyes skimmed briefly over the top row, where finger bones lay on the velvet in rows, like dead soldiers. Below that, several scrolls and tiny leatherworks—not a speck of cowhide in any of them; each had its own individual cubby. The scroll closest to Claire was a particularly tan shade of brown. The surface shifted just as her gaze landed on it. A trick of shadows, Claire thought, then: Nerves. And then she thought, Oh.

The tanned hide warped and puckered. A rolling shape rose out of the surface, churning like a fish under the surface until it began to take a recognizable topography. A cheekbone, the hollows smooth as the skin it remembered being. A shifting motion revealed a closed eye, the line of a nose, as if the scroll surface had thinned and something pressed in from the other side. Then: a perfectly shaped mouth. The lips were clear and detailed enough that when they parted around a single word, Claire could almost understand it.

Bones rattled. Each delicate finger bone shivered in its velvet bed. Shadows streamed across the ivory, words, or possibly images. Claire refused to look closely. A thump made her jump. The drum beside the scroll writhed, and a tiny, fragile hand tried to push through.

A blat of a cry startled her, and Claire stepped back abruptly.

Bird hunched over the nearest shelf, scouring her with pitiless eyes that said, Pull yourself together. Below the raven, a figure crouched in the shadow of the shelf, which sent Claire’s pulse up again until she recognized the moon silver eyes.

“Not that,” Rosia said in a whisper.

It took a moment to wrest her breathing steady, and Claire cursed herself before focusing on Rosia. “What?”

“You should be listening, but not to that.” Rosia hopped forward with a birdlike jerk. Claire didn’t flinch, which brought a pleased smile to the willowy girl’s face. “You’re not scared of me.”

“Why would I be scared of—” Claire caught herself. “You shouldn’t be here, Rosia. Go back to your home. There’s something dangerous in the wing.”

Rosia’s head tilted and silver-dollar eyes blinked. “Dangerous to you, not me.”

Claire hated to repeat herself. “What? I don’t think you—”

“Ghosts don’t scare ghosts,” Rosia said simply before turning on her heel and walking off with a gliding step.

Claire blinked after her. Rosia was a damsel from a gothic horror—something crimson and spiky in the title, as she recalled. Claire’d hated ghost stories as a child, a fact she was just remembering now in the damning way things were forgotten in Hell. She’d hated ghost stories, always spending the whole story steeling herself for the scare, so that by the end she had given herself a headache. Knowing what was coming in a story wasn’t always helpful. Sometimes it made it worse.

Still, Claire brooked no fears. She had a responsibility to watch out for Rosia, and at least the girl appeared to confirm what Claire was seeing. It was better than enduring Rami’s skepticism. Onward, then. She did not run after the girl, but she upgraded her pace to a determined stride. Bird