didn’t twitch and jerk out of alignment. A w appeared, then an h.
“There was a man who . . .” Hero’s voice faltered. “Who. Who are you?”
The flurry of activity out of the corner of her eye had stilled. Claire looked up. Hero stood by the table, one hand still raised in mid-celebration. A startled look of alarm was on his face, but it slowly drained as she watched, and all color was lost from his cheeks.
A breath caught in Claire’s throat. “Hero?”
Emotion melted off Hero’s face, smoothing even the small lines around his scarred cheek. His eyes were blank when they met hers. “Who are you? Who? No.” A tear blinked down his empty expression, watery and faintly smoke-colored. “Who?”
Ink was flowing in the corner of her sight. Her knuckles went white around her pen as Claire looked down. The ink had continued writing, line after line of neat manuscript text appearing, growing more jagged and irregular as it went. Claire clutched the pen to her chest, nowhere near the paper, but still the words kept repeating over and over: There was a man who who are you who are you who are you who who who who who.
It occupied every line on the page, and then the serifs of each letter turned jagged, as if spawning their own contributions, written at an angle. All repeating the same word, who who who. Ink began to sop the page, puddling in the work light.
Hero made a gagging sound. Black sputtered across his lips, as if he was spitting up blood. But it was so much worse than blood. The liquid was black and staining, spiderwebbing down his chin and across his skin.
Her heart roiled into her throat. Claire threw the pen away from her and grabbed the blotter, already loaded with a sheet. She slammed it down on the surface of Hero’s book, but when she lifted it, the blotter was dry, and black crept across the page like mold. It began to soak into subsequent pages.
“Who, who, who . . .” Hero’s voice was a gurgle between gasps for breath. Black consumed his neck, turning his clothes sodden with ink. His hands grasped at Claire’s shoulders until the infection reached his elbows and he yanked back. Hero shrank to his knees, holding a hand up to his face. One emerald eye melted to pine, then tar. The remaining eye teared up, and his gaze flicked to Claire for one flickering moment. “A choice, ward—”
Ink swarmed his eyes and his face went slack. Desperation clawed a whimper out of Claire’s throat. Careless of the ink, she ripped out the sodden page with her gloved hand. But it had spread to the next page, and the next. Parchment began to disintegrate, melting together with the ink.
And when Claire looked up, the same horror had begun on Hero’s face. His high cheekbone, the right one, unblemished by scars, crumpled first, followed by his nose and the socket of one black, unseeing eye. His body caved in on itself. A wordless gulf filled Claire’s chest and somewhere, distantly, a raven was shrieking. Hero’s book, pages, binding, and all, melted into a bleak slurry. Claire clutched it on instinct, but it dripped through her hands with a sharp, cold heat. Used up, it didn’t even appear interested in staining her this time. When she looked up, she was alone.
Alone, except for a blot of ink, wet upon the carpet.
26
RAMI
Forgetting is its own kind of awful magic. The longer we are down here, the more things melt away. It’s unnerving, but I try to remember that entropy doesn’t apply in places like this. Nothing is really destroyed; nothing is lost for good. It cheers me to think maybe our memories go where forgotten books go. Silent readers to keep the silent books of the Dust Wing company.
It’s a nice story, at least. No one is forgotten, and no one is alone.
Librarian Gregor Henry, 1917 CE
RAMI WAS A MAN used to routine and duty. Two things that had been sadly lacking since they’d returned from the Chinvat bridge. Hero had left him the duty of the Unwritten Wing, but Rami felt ill at home there. Yet, when he’d left, Hero seemed troubled by a private errand. It only felt supportive to make an excuse to stay out of his way. He suspected Hero was seeking out Claire. He understood there was a deeper tie between book and former librarian than he, or anyone, understood. He