The Archive of the Forgotten (Hell's Library #2) - A. J. Hackwith Page 0,81

frown for?”

“The doors.” The frisson of unease in Rami’s voice made Hero crane his head around. The ceiling had been all very much the same, so it was some surprise to see they were in the foyer of the Unwritten Wing. Rami had stopped near the gargoyle, who was napping by evidence of the snore that emanated, in a couple of frequencies adjacent to reality, from his alcove. If Hero twisted his head further, he could make out the upside-down curve of the Unwritten Wing’s doors.

Which were nearly closed.

“That’s peculiar.” Hero wasn’t alarmed, not yet. He was, however, getting a crick in his neck. “Put me down, will you?”

Rami hesitated, which gave Hero the opportunity to flop back against his chest a little too heavily and pin him with his best royal disdain. “I twisted my ankle; I didn’t lose it. And I can already tell the scrape is healed closed. I’d rather not fall on my head while you’re wrestling with the doors with your hands full. Put me down and stop acting like a nursemaid.”

Rami relented, which allowed Hero to almost forgive him for the way he nonsensically set him down as if he were made of blown glass. Hero thumped his bandaged foot down to prove a point and hid the grimace of discomfort as he turned toward the door.

He cleared the small distance at a limp but hesitated with his hand above the silver curve of the door pull. Doubt flickered in his stomach. He silently willed the doors to swing on their hinges. There were many reasons why the wing might close its doors, but only one reason to lock them.

A shift of movement signaled Rami coming up behind him, cautiously, likely one hand on the pommel of his sword to charge in and save the day. It was a ridiculous thought, and enough for Hero to grasp the silver handle and yank with more force than necessary. The door parted open on silent greased hinges, and Hero thrust it aside to hide his relief. “There. The doors probably closed on a breeze by accident. Let in some fresh air, Brevity?”

His voice thudded into the well of quiet as heavy as a stone dropped in a pond. The lights were on, and across the expanse of the lobby Hero saw the productive kind of clutter that the librarian’s desk had when she was working. But a chill kind of quiet frosted the air without a response, and no one stirred from the stacks.

“Librarian?” Hero tried again at a louder volume. A feather-soft touch brushed his elbow and nearly sent him out of his skin. His injured ankle filed another complaint, which he focused into a glare.

Rami raised his thick brows in apology and pitched his voice low. “Did Brevity have external business when you left?”

“Not that I knew of. She was chattering away with that traitorous muse. The stacks have been quiet and she’s been so preoccupied I wouldn’t think—” Hero’s gaze fished over the long shadows of the Library. It was possible Brevity was on some errand deep in the stacks, so deep she hadn’t heard Hero call. But he trusted the instinct that told him that wasn’t the case. The wing wasn’t just quiet. Quiet had a mild flavor, a pause. Vacancy, abandonment, was heavy and deep. The back of Hero’s neck prickled. “I should check on the damsels.”

He made it two limping steps before Rami caught his elbow and used his momentum to spin him away from the stacks. “No, I’ll check on the damsels. Perhaps Brevity left some kind of note in the logbook.”

“I am the librarian here,” Hero objected in a mostly confident tone. Assistant librarian. Technically.

“And only librarians can make sense of that grotto you call a desk,” Rami said simply. He had that implacable Watcher look; that I’ve waited millennia; what’s another one? placid stare that made Hero want to dig in his heels. If one of his heels didn’t hurt right now.

Hero straightened his shoulders toward the desk, chin too high in the air to notice when Rami was satisfied enough to disappear between the rows of books. His ankle was a brittle complaint by the time he reached the desk, and Hero flopped down in Brevity’s armchair gladly and let out a slow, measured sigh.

The quiet was less forbidding, just knowing Rami was there among the aisles. It was funny, how companionship did that. Like how just knowing there was a campfire to return to made