The Archive of the Forgotten (Hell's Library #2) - A. J. Hackwith Page 0,93

The only color remaining was the faintest wash of pink still clinging to the tips of her long hair. Unlike Gaiety, she’d retained her facial features, but the bead of black ink swirled hazily from eye to eye, occasionally making a detour down to slash black across her lips. It was the only sign of life in the face that had been so hopeful and eager to help moments ago.

Brevity’s heart clenched but she didn’t let go. “Verve, you gotta snap out of it.”

She didn’t appear to hear. Verve lunged across the carpet again, hands straining toward the shelves of books as if she were a dying man reaching for a mirage. She croaked again, hungry and keening. It was all Brevity could do to sit on her back until Probity arrived.

Probity had managed to procure a strap from somewhere and had belted Gaiety’s thin arms to his sides. The faceless muse twisted and writhed, as if suffocating in his own skin. It hurt to watch. Brevity looked away to twist around and begin to roll the shredded rug around Verve’s sides. “What happened to them?”

Probity’s face was tear streaked, and she looked stricken. “It’s—it’s like the ink took them, all of them. Sucked them dry. Why would it— It shouldn’t have been able to do that.”

“Seems like that shit is doing lots of stuff it isn’t supposed to be able to do lately.” Brevity thought again of Claire and blanched at the thought of Claire without a face and leached of color. It almost seemed a blessing now that the ink had stained, giving rather than taking.

“This . . . we can fix this, though. Right?” Probity looked at her as if she had answers instead of an armful of rabid muse.

Verve bucked again beneath her, spitting her anger and forcing Brevity to pin her shoulders down. “It’s like they turned feral.”

“Not feral . . .” An idea brightened Probity’s reddened eyes. “Not feral, hungry. The ink drained them, and now they’re struggling to fill themselves back up. They’re hungry for what we’re all hungry for.”

“Human stories,” Brevity supplied. She looked toward the stacks worriedly. Liquid tendrils of color still washed out from the books, but they seemed to recoil from where Verve writhed on the floor, staying out of reach. The books knew danger as well as Brevity did. “But we don’t eat stories! Muses transport stories and inspiration to humans all the time. Look, she’s already gnawing on the rug.”

“Maybe it’s not about what a muse wants, but what the ink wants,” Probity mulled it over. “If they can get enough to satisfy what they’ve lost, then perhaps they can get control over the ink.”

“No part of this is in control! Probity, please, listen to me.” Brevity’s hold on Verve was slipping. Probity came over without being asked, expertly twisting the other end of her strap around Verve’s neck until it appeared she had two feral ghosts on a leash. Brevity backed up onto her knees, aware of every muscle in her arms screaming. “Listen. The experiment failed; this was a terrible idea from the start. Muses aren’t made to control stories. That was my mistake when I tried to take inspiration for myself too.” Her hand went self-consciously to her bare forearm again. It still felt naked and raw. “We can appreciate stories, protect them, help them get written, honor them even. But we’re not human. Muses are conduits. If we try to hold on to them, we’ll just hurt ourselves.”

Trying to steal the inspiration gilt and bind it into her skin had hurt, but being driven out of the Muses Corps had hurt worse. She almost felt an empathy for the husks of Verve and Gaiety. She’d had everything ripped away once, and felt that emptiness, the overwhelming ache to fill it with something, anything.

She’d been sent here, to Claire, and the Library. Learned how vulnerable and fragile stories are. It wasn’t enough to have inspiration. It took a special kind of alchemy to bring a story into existence, and that was so easy to destroy. Brevity shook her head. “We have to get them out of here before they hurt a book.”

“Yes,” Probity said slowly, but she made no move to drag her captives away. “But . . . what if we gave them one?”

Brevity pivoted, mouth agape. “What?”

“What if we gave them a book? Just one.” Probity was warming to the idea, scanning the shelves thoughtfully. “There are so many. We could pick