The Library of the Unwritten - A. J_ Hackwith Page 0,132

arm and hobbled around to the side of his head. She considered the dead eye lodged in a tumorous skull.

This would not be pleasant work.

* * *

◆ ◆ ◆

SHE’D HAD NO TOOLS, just Walter’s own limp claws. By the time it was done, her skirts were tacky with blood, her fingers trembled, and her hands felt as if they’d never be clean again. But a sphere about the size of a grapefruit and the color of bone sat heavy in the palm of her hand. It was completely smooth and was translucent in sections. Not an actual eye, but . . . something else.

That was the problem with defeating the gatekeeper: no one was left to explain how to open the gate.

Claire turned it over in her hands. She hobbled up to this pillar and that, pressing the white surface against random stones. Hoping something would happen. Nothing did, and the urgency to get back merged with injury and exhaustion to eat at what patience she had left for analysis.

“Hell and harpies.” She had just pulled away from another pillar in disgust when light hit the orb as she held it up. Claire blinked and squinted as she held the sphere in front of her.

The courtyard transformed. Through the eye, the world became a wash of milky shadows, but it also became a world of doors. Claire turned a slow circle. Everywhere she looked, narrow gates lined the walls. And the pillars—the pillars. Each pillar held a series of tiny, physically impossible doors that hinged off the pillar like wheel spokes off an axle.

The courtyard became a crossroads.

“But no signposts. Which one?” Claire muttered. The orb responded by pulsing brightly and Claire nearly dropped it in surprise. When she brought it back to her eye, she saw that the doors were colored now. Each gate now held a door front decorated with unique lines and painted one of a multitude of colors, more than she would have believed existed.

She considered the one in the wall nearest her. It was ivory with metal inlay, every detail gilded. A flock of chubby-cheeked infants frolicked across it, each bearing wings and a golden horn, while some frankly terrifying figures watched from above, borne up by greater wings. Claire could guess the destination for that one, and she chuckled as she stepped back.

Hell would be easy to find. But she couldn’t just drop into the Library in the middle of an invasion and expect a solution to present itself. Claire pivoted as she considered the gallery of pathways around her, a tickle of a plan beginning to form in her head.

38

RAMIEL

The inhabitants of Hell are not the most welcoming neighbors, but a smart librarian will never be adrift for resources. Remember the other libraries, other realms, other paths. Build good fences, make good friends, and keep your laundry indoors. Leave just enough doubt in their minds to make yourself not worth the trouble.

Librarian Gregor Henry, 1982 CE

HELL WAS A SERIES of hallways.

It was monotonous and maddening, and Rami still couldn’t believe it. The door had been open. The old paths into Hell, paths Rami hadn’t walked since he’d abandoned Lucifer’s upstart rebellion so long ago, had still been open. The way between worlds had still risen to appear when Rami willed it. No tricks, no force, no begging needed.

It was as if Hell had been waiting for him. In the eons, ages, millennia since then, Lucifer hadn’t shut him out. Uriel’s mad plan had turned out to be right. For some reason, even as a Watcher presumably working for Heaven, Rami was welcome in Hell.

The prospect, and the possible reasons why, disturbed him deeply.

Leto, however, experienced no such concerns. The boy brightened up considerably once they’d reached these interminable hallways. He behaved as if he wanted nothing more than to hug each pillar they passed.

Thankfully, he kept his arms at his sides and carefully walked in the center of the hall, per their agreement. Leto was a purified soul, and if he could stay that way, he could still pass the Gates. But souls were grasping things. The slightest encounter with the wrong influence here could corrupt and damn him all over again. Just walking the grounds was dangerous enough, and Rami had insisted that the boy stay two steps behind him when trouble presented itself and touch nothing besides the floor beneath his feet.

He allowed Leto to take the lead once they passed the trials of the anguished in the outer ring