The Archive of the Forgotten (Hell's Library #2) - A. J. Hackwith Page 0,59
bleed ink, not blood. I’ve got an unidentified substance that I need to identify, obviously connected to your people in some way. All I need is a simple sample for comparison.”
The room had gone quite still again. Claire hadn’t noticed how false the room’s quiet murmur was until it died. Perhaps because, at some point during her explanation, she had stood. Her hand had found the work scalpel she kept in a skirt pocket and held it high. It caught the light and shone like a threat.
“Claire,” Lucille said, soft as lead. “There’s no need for that here.”
“I think there is.” Claire’s voice threatened to wobble in her throat. She tried to shore it up with that bottled anger, but all that came to her summons was an increasing sense of desperation. “I need answers. It’s my job to have answers. I can’t protect them without answers.”
“And who protects us?” Lucille didn’t move from the chair but simply finished her tea and folded her hands in her lap.
The question bit, gnawed at the tender, guilty shadow that was Claire’s past. But the possibility—the hope—that the answer was in front of her was too much to ignore. She swallowed and lowered the hand holding the scalpel—not to put it away, but for a slightly less overtly villainous posture. “I’m not the Unwritten Wing’s librarian anymore. Your protection is not my responsibility.”
The lie tasted like ash, but Lucille nodded acceptance. “As you wish. Here. Come, then. If you want blood, you know how to draw it.” She put her hands heavily on the table and pushed to her feet, slow and ponderous. She stretched out an arm and met Claire’s gaze. “Not the first time you’ve hurt a character, is it?”
“I’m not doing this to hurt,” Claire said, trying to feel for the truth as it passed over her tongue. Wasn’t she? She needed answers, but wouldn’t it be a relief to take an answer from a book—willing or unwilling—and for a moment feel like she was certain of her role again? Her fingers wrapped tighter around the handle of the blade to steady her doubts as she reached for Lucille’s arm. “Not that I have to explain my actions to you. You’re certain you’ll be able to hold on to this form?”
Lucille narrowed a level gaze at her in response. Eyes blue and unfilmed by age despite her appearance. “I’m not one of the lost young ones. I’ve known myself for a long time, child. Your little knife doesn’t frighten me.”
Claire nodded once and took hold of Lucille’s arm about the wrist. A distraught murmur shivered through the room, vague distressed words that faded because the damsels followed Lucille’s lead. Her skin felt the age the book was portrayed to be, human and papery thin under her fingertips. As Claire’s would have, had she not died in middle age. Humans turned to paper and stories in the end, given enough time.
But not here. Her fingers were strong, and Lucille held still. She didn’t need to pick a vein on a character—any prick would bleed. Claire glanced up once but received no encouragement from Lucille’s cool gaze.
She brought the scalpel down in a practiced motion, a small diagonal cut. Black liquid welled along the line, and Claire dropped the scalpel to the table so she could snap up an empty vial to catch the bleeding ink.
Claire pointedly ignored the wash of disquiet that started at the sight of spilled ink. It wasn’t squeamishness, no—the damsels who had survived the slaughter of the coup attempt were far beyond that. No, the gazes Claire felt on the back of her neck were hostile. Taking a scalpel to Lucille had brought back too many close associations with Claire’s past treatment of books.
Mistreatment, she supposed, as she retrieved her instrument to press down harder around the wound to get a viable sample. Which was fair, she brooded, as she examined the black liquid as it dribbled across the glass of the vial—a red sheen, hmm, not exactly like the mystery ink. Not at first glance, in any case, but as Claire stared she felt like more colors bubbled beneath the surface. The others didn’t understand the stakes. Claire needed answers. Needed them for—
“Claire!”
Brevity stood in the doorway, a shadow of a muse at her back. The naked horror on her face made Claire’s hands flinch away from Lucille despite herself. But not before she carefully and precisely corked the sample.