The Library of the Unwritten - A. J_ Hackwith Page 0,11

I just don’t care,” the guard said.

“I need to speak with an arch.”

“Arches don’t speak to the Gate, especially not to you.”

“I’m well aware.” Rami fought not to grind his teeth. Because he was a fallen Watcher, his position among the angels was complicated and barely tolerated. “There’s an abnormality they’ll want to hear about.”

“Is that so?” the angel said. The old man next to Rami shifted and finally caught the angel’s gaze. “What have you got there, mortal?”

It was a question that Rami had forgotten to ask, what with all the glowing and the fuss. The old man looked lost for a moment, gazing down hard into his hand at the trembling bit of scrap. He looked up with a brilliant smile. “It’s the Devil’s Bible.”

The silence that hung between the two angels was louder than all the shuffling of a million souls past the bench. Rami was the first to recover.

“If that’s—”

“I’ll get an arch.”

The guard disappeared through the Gates. Effortlessly, as Rami had once been able to do. But instead he was left to wait, occasionally shooting out a guiding arm whenever Avery wobbled too far away.

He sighed at the mass of milling souls that stretched out across the featureless plain. They would be backing up without processing, he knew. It struck him as entirely unnecessary. And tiring. This was Heaven. Souls judged themselves. No one found their way up here unless they were meant to be here. The processing, the Gates, the judgment, it was all a performance someone—likely the only Someone that mattered—had decided was necessary. Once, very long ago, when Rami was allowed past those vast shimmering gates and came and went from the Heavenly court at will, he might have agreed. Now he was just tired.

And he wanted back in.

“Uriel will speak to you.” The angel guard appeared at his elbow.

Rami stifled a groan. “It would be her.” He ignored the guard’s scandalized glance as he pulled the old man along. Avery was busy grinning at his pockets again.

A door appeared in the wall next to the Gates, revealing a narrow pearl staircase. At the top, Rami and Avery stepped out into a nursery of stars.

The dimensions of the room followed the general idea of an office: four walls, a smooth floor, and a high ceiling. But it was as if one had tried to explain the idea of an “office” to an elder god and this was the result. Everywhere, upon almost every surface, clung a thin film of the universe. Stars burst across the floor; an orange nebula cloud of color gestated new suns in the curve of a bookcase accented with brass spindles. It wasn’t a painting or a model; the office was molded out of life. It was a miniature, breathing existence that bloomed color and expansion. So much color, so full of texture and movement after the unrelenting sterility, it was dizzying. Rami blinked his eyes against it.

The only mundane surface in the office was a deep oak desk, but even this was held up with pillars of stars. Rami recognized the angel seated behind it.

Quite tall and nearly as powerfully built as Ramiel, Uriel was all light. Her white-gold hair was trimmed short, and her uniform was impeccable, where Rami’s was dark and faded. The uniform was not much changed from the last time Ramiel had seen it, despite the centuries that had passed. Outrageous buttons and tassels had been replaced with clean military trim, but it was still a leader’s uniform. Still assuredly Uriel. Five seconds in her presence left Rami feeling shabby and mismatched.

Uriel was always as inerrant in her presence as she was with her purpose. Rami had once chalked this up to the confidence of youth. Ramiel was from the original Watcher angels, made before the Fall. Uriel belonged to the batch of angelic creatures made after.

But as the centuries went on, the difference in age became negligible, and he was forced to admit that Uriel was simply better made. Made for power, made for righteousness. Where Rami struggled to be certain of his way, Uriel burned with it.

“Ramiel.” No less certain were the daggers of disappointment that edged her smile as she rose to greet him with a powerful handshake. “I was there when the Host voted to allow you to serve at the Gates. A chance at redemption, a great honor.” She said this evenly, as if it was a decision she would not have made but could be generous enough