The Archive of the Forgotten (Hell's Library #2) - A. J. Hackwith Page 0,57
certainty. The more it hurt, the surer she was. This was the right choice, the correct path of action. She would get answers here. She would know, and in her knowing, the world would make sense again.
And if the world made sense again, she could fix it. For Hero, Rami, Brevity. For all of them.
It was the resolution Claire needed to place her hand on the latch. The metal was cool, grounding as the ache of stone. She rapped her knuckles twice on the frosted glass before letting herself in.
A pocket of air heavy with tea and fresh linen enveloped her with warmth. The damsel suite had always been several degrees more to the side of cozy than the rest of the Library, and Claire marveled again at how even this had changed under Brevity’s care. She’d had the opportunity twice before, but now she had the luxury of being neither injured nor harried. She stepped into a well-appointed sitting room. Well, perhaps the sitting rooms of Claire’s era wouldn’t have been quite so lined, wall to wall, with bookshelves, but it was still decidedly homey. A glimpse of small hallways and open doorways said there were even bedrooms now, which had never before occurred to Claire as something an unwritten book would need. A small fire licked the hearth in the corner, and the sight of it made Claire’s heart constrict for longer than she would admit. Flames, in such proximity to the book-lined wall, opened up a scab in her chest that had never quite healed.
When she’d woken up earlier, she’d been preoccupied with her hand, but now she was here with a goal in mind. A few damsels were scattered in pockets of activity through the lounge. Repeatedly, gazes flickered up, taking Claire in with a guarded glance, then turning back to their focus. At one point, Claire had felt more boogeyman than librarian. Now she felt like neither.
“Child.” Claire turned to see a damsel finally extract herself from conversation. The woman who approached was not the typical cut of damsel—young, pretty according to the standards of her era, with a blank look in her eyes that quickly rubbed off like bad varnish after a taste of the independence that the damsel suite offered. The woman who approached was older, silver hair cut into a businesslike pixie and stout body swathed in a kind of housedress that was meant for comfort.
“Claire,” she corrected automatically. Andras had been fond of pet names, and Claire had developed a distaste for them. “Just Claire is fine.”
“Of course, Claire.” The woman took the correction with good grace. “They call me Lucille. Granny Lucy, mostly, but I don’t imagine you allow yourself such luxuries as elders.” Claire wasn’t allowed more than a moment to consider whether that was a compliment or not before Lucille was nodding to the nearest seat. “What brings a former librarian to us?”
Claire preferred to remain standing. If anything, the damsel suite was more homelike, more welcoming than ever, but Claire felt on edge. The vials in her pocket were chilled weights, and her mind noted every crack and hiss from the fireplace like a snake ready to strike. She cleared her throat. “There’s a line of inquiry I believed you all might help me with.”
Lucille had begun to lower herself into an armchair in that ponderous way arthritis sufferers did, but halted midmotion at that. A calculating expression flicked across her face, then was dismissed as she finished settling into the chair. By the time she straightened her baggy skirt, she’d become a picture of grandmotherly care again. “Well then, a welcome change to the rare dramas that brought you to us before. Have a seat, dear. Would you like a cookie? Summer baked brownies, but”—Lucille lowered her voice to a fond stage whisper—“he uses carob. He’s from some hippie romance,” Lucille supplied, as if the unwritten book’s genre explained everything.
“It’s better for you,” a pale young man muttered with a shrug as he set down the plate of chocolate squares she supposed must have been pulled from some unwritten cookbook. Summer gave Claire a single once-over that spoke volumes of judgment before leaving them again.
Claire resisted pointing out the fact that none of them precisely needed to eat in the Library, let alone carob brownies. She was disliked enough in the damsel suite as it was. Still, the vials clinked restlessly in her breast pocket. “We’ve discovered the source of the disturbance that was drawing away