man started. “I have not! I—”
“Did she argue?” Claire snapped. “When you made your excuses? Did she even notice you were exiting with another woman?”
“I . . . am very persuasive.” The hero covered sudden uncertainty with a delicate sneer. “Not that you would understand such an intimate connection.”
Claire rolled her eyes. “Yes, yes, I’m an ogre. You wound me. And you’re still twisting her mind all up just by being here.”
“I can’t be. . . .” Color drained from his face. “An agreement, then. I’ll show you where I hid it. I’ll go with you. Just . . . let me say good-bye to her.”
Claire was unmoved. “No. Out of the question.”
“It’s not a trick! You can even watch me. Please.” The hero gave a pleading glance to Brevity and Leto. “I owe her a decent good-bye, at least that much. Wouldn’t that help repair some of the damage I’ve done?”
Brevity spoke up. “A proper good-bye might make him more human, boss. To the author.”
Claire’s face remained stony. “Are you speaking as a former muse?”
“Speaking as a girl who remembers how hearts work. Since sometimes you forget.”
Claire huffed her disagreement and considered. She rustled in her bag. “Fine. Hold out your hand.”
“What?”
“Your hand, hero. If I’m letting a book walk around, I want some insurance. You’re getting a stamp.”
“I’m not . . .” The hero’s delicate brows knit together in confusion. Nonetheless, he reluctantly shoved up a sleeve. “This is demeaning. You already have my card. Is this really necessary?”
“Quite.” Claire retrieved from her bag a small stamp with a stubby wooden handle. She squinted and twisted one of the gears at the base. With a utilitarian jab, she stabbed the tip of the handle into her own palm. Brevity made a small noise as she looked away.
Leto felt queasy but entranced. Blood pooled briefly on Claire’s hand before being wicked into the stamp’s handle. Leto swore the wood now had a warmer, ruddier sheen.
In another practiced move, the librarian snatched the hero’s palm and planted the stamp’s rubber end squarely in the center of his pale wrist.
A red-black ribbon of ink escaped from the rubber circle and twined its way around the hero’s wrist, leaving behind a worming knot of threads and shapes. The medallion pulsed on his forearm. Curiosity getting the better of him, Leto leaned closer. A tiny calligraphic font, almost too slender to read, shifted in chaotic patterns across the hero’s skin.
The hero yanked back his wrist and rubbed at it tenderly. He raised his chin, regaining some of his initial arrogance. “We have an accord?”
The librarian scowled, but with less force than she’d had before. She was pale, as if she’d lost energy as well as blood. “Welcome to Special Collections.”
She stowed the stamp away in her bag without looking at the hero. “Go. Be back here with book in hand in twenty minutes.”
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
THEY WAITED ACROSS THE street from the coffee shop, at a bus stop bench just long enough to accommodate all three of them. Claire had fallen into a quiet that was tense enough for Leto to wish she was yelling at people again.
The librarians kept their eyes fixed on the coffee shop’s window. The hero was inside for moments before reappearing at the front table with the redheaded author, just as he’d promised. Leto could see him cradling the woman’s hands across the table, their heads angled toward each other.
Leto rubbed the backs of his knuckles before breaking the silence. “So, uh, do you two do this often?”
“I wish. I love it up here.” Brevity sighed. “But characters don’t often just walk off with their books. And stamping is even more rare.” She gave the librarian a side glance.
Leto’s curiosity overcame his nerves. “What exactly does that do?”
“Stamping?” Again, Brevity’s eyes bobbed to Claire and away before she answered. “A stamped book becomes part of the Library’s special collection. It means the librarian can IWL it.”
“IWL?”
“Interworld loan,” Brevity explained. “Loaned out to or called back from anywhere, basically. Books have a way of going where they’re needed, and Hell’s Library keeps unwritten art, but it isn’t the only library out there—I hear great things about Valhalla’s, actually. It keeps all the untold acts of heroism,” Brevity said. “Librarians can summon a stamped book back to Hell’s Library from anywhere, even if its calling card is destroyed. If it’s in Special Collections, it will always return to its originating Library.”
“Sounds . . . serious. Why don’t you do