The Archive of the Forgotten (Hell's Library #2) - A. J. Hackwith Page 0,83

in him. Hero frowned. “Ramiel is much too smart to try to herd that woman. Claire makes her own decisions.”

“At the expense of the Library,” Lucille said, dropping her eyes to Hero’s heels on the desk again. “I wonder how much longer we can afford it. Or you.”

She had the mortifying power to continually make Hero feel like a scrawny farm bumpkin again. As if he were twelve years old, mud on his face and pig shit between his toes. Hero’s feet hit the floor with a thud, and he stood to make it seem like his idea.

“An inventory would be appropriate.” Lucille sat herself down on the edge of a divan, looking for all the world as if she were preparing to order a cup of tea. “And would ease my concerns.”

“I was not aware that your concerns extended beyond your little island of misfits.”

“No one is an island. Especially here.” Lucille folded her hands, and the faint rasp of her aging paper skin sent a chill up Hero’s neck. She pinned him with a placid stare. “Stories have a way of entangling.”

Rami interrupted the silence with a grunt before Hero could conjure a response to that. “An inventory would be prudent,” Rami said to the floor. “If the acting librarian agrees?”

It took effort to keep the snarl from his lips. Rami was trying to be supportive, in his way. But under Lucille’s gaze the reminder of his supposed authority felt wrong, like a sliver wedged under his nail. Hero flung the logbook back onto the surface of the desk and flipped through the pages until he hit the inventory page. The pen was already flourished in his hand before he had a chance to hesitate with the nib inches from the page. The flutter in his gut was a nuisance. He’d written in the logbook before; he’d do so again. He’d never commanded the Library before.

And he could think of no sensible reason why it would listen.

Self-irritation acted as the best kind of lubricant to movement. Hero scratched out the order swiftly, dotting the period at the end with a vicious flourish. His hand cramped around the pen, which he found he couldn’t quite put down until, after an insufferable pause, the book began to hum with a rustle of paper. The opposite page began to fill up and scroll through an impossibly long list of titles.

“There.” Hero flung himself back in the chair and lifted his chin to Lucille. “Happy, Grandmother?”

“As happy as you are.” Lucille smoothed the thin polyester of her housedress over her wide hips and got comfortable. “Oh, my dear. I appear to have forgotten my tea.”

“I’ll see what I can find, ma’am.” Rami straightened and made an awkward scan of the desk before heading back into the stacks.

The tea caddy, the silver cart that Brevity kept overflowing with sachets and chipped cups, was three paces behind the desk, in the alcove with the sleeping tapestries. It was not among the shelves. Hero could have told him, were it not for the way Lucille’s gaze sharpened on him like a whetstone. “The elderly are so absentminded,” Hero tsked over the hum of the logbook running inventory.

“That boy is older than most of the damsel suite put together.” Lucille pinned him with a weighted glance. “You should leave the Arcane Wing well enough alone. Come back to the Library.”

“I’m the assistant librarian. And part of Special Collections.” Hero dropped his head back with a dramatic flourish. “I couldn’t be more entrenched in the Library if I tried.”

“You can’t, though. Try.”

Lucille was watching him when his head snapped back up. “I beg your pardon,” Hero said in his most I absolutely do not beg your pardon tone.

“You can’t try,” Lucille repeated simply. “I’m sorry, child; it’s not as if you have a choice in the matter. Is that why you make everything you do seem as if it’s both the largest imposition and also done at your forbearance? Fancy way you have with that.”

It took Hero a beat longer to arm his words than it should have. “As if you have room to speak, damsel.”

The wattle of aged skin on Lucille’s throat shivered as she chuckled. “Oh yes, heaven help you if you thought you were one of us. But rest assured—you’re not. You’d be welcome with us, of course, but . . . well, we have chosen to stay in the suite, instead of going back to our books. It’s a slim choice, but a