The Archive of the Forgotten (Hell's Library #2) - A. J. Hackwith Page 0,51

the breeze, as if the wide-eyed boy who owned that reflection had never existed, hadn’t been left cold and crouching by the pool.

Yes, he could admit it. The librarian of the Unsaid Wing unnerved Hero entirely, because he was evidently the only one with a lick of sense. He was intimately aware of the idea of being fluid in identity and form. But when he’d woken up and made the gradual unfurling from book-shaped to human, it had been as natural as uncurling yourself from a long sleep. Every book carried a scar, a splinter of psyche, that was essential to its need to exist. Heroes, mostly, but sometimes a secondary character like a damsel, or even an object of desire. And sometimes monsters, antagonists like himself.

The sweet irony was, Hero hadn’t realized he wasn’t the protagonist until he woke, standing in a dusty, dimly lit hallway, with the weight of proof in his hands.

Hero or villain, either way there was no question what shape Hero would have taken. No choice, no abiding randomness of opportunity. The idea that creatures like this cursed nymph existed to just step in and out of another’s skin—their reflection, rather—like pests rendering a tree hollow . . .

Everything should know their shape, in Hero’s mind. His book was broken, yes, but he was still a book. He’d been shocked to not be the protagonist, but he’d long since adjusted to his nature as a villain. As long as he knew what he was, he knew the thrust of his story. Being nothing but what was reflected by others . . .

That wasn’t a story at all.

“Letters, confessions, dedications . . .” Rami muttered again, slowing as he scanned the shelves. His profile was lit by the eerie, stone-split sunlight that suffused the entire library. It painted gold coins on his olive skin. “Remarkable. Humans are remarkable.”

Humans. Not books. It was always the creators, not the created. Hero sometimes wondered why anyone bothered to preserve him at all. Still. Curiosity got the best of him. Hero drifted toward the nearest shelf and plucked a short scroll from the top.

“I want you to know I never regretted it,” he read under his breath. “Not one moment of my life with you. No matter how the end comes now, choosing you was the best decision I ever made. You are . . .” Hero frowned and rolled the scroll gently before returning it to the shelf with a huff. “What nonsense. Who would bother to save all this—this sentimentality?”

“I would have thought you’d understand,” Rami said with a contemplative look. “Losing the chance for closure with people you may never see again.”

Hero’s step faltered. The square weight of his book burned in the pocket of his coat, weighty as a brand. The implication was obvious, no matter how gently Ramiel tried to put it. Hero had a whole world he’d been cut off from, the only one he’d known. The only one he’d been made for. He hadn’t given it a thought at the time. Waking up was instinct. His book had been one world, the Library another. A simple journey. He’d always assumed going back would be just as simple—eventually. When he got around to it.

If he hadn’t quite given up the idea of going back, he certainly couldn’t see the road anymore either.

Ramiel’s gaze was like a weight. “I—” Hero forced his chin up and his shoulders through a mechanical, well-practiced shrug. “It’s not as if many would have missed me back home. Villains are not well-liked, even in their own stories.”

Ramiel had taken too long to respond. Hero shook the lingering chill of old ghosts and looked up sharply. The Watcher feigned intense interest in the scroll in his hands. A glance said it was an unsent angry tirade, entirely unworthy of the sympathetic, soft look on Ramiel’s stony features.

Hero clicked his tongue. “Right, enough of this heart-to-heart nonsense. Where’s the monster gone off to?”

Echo drifted at the crest of the rise. Rise. Proper libraries didn’t have rises, or hills, or moss, or sunlight like a song. Proper libraries had shelves and books, and an indexing system and calling cards like any sensible—

Oh dear gods, he was beginning to sound like Claire.

Echo didn’t move as they caught up with her. Her face—Pallas’s face—was just as dull as it had been since it stepped out of the pond. She extended one hand and pointed farther down. Hero followed the gesture with his eyes to another