ones: Duat, Jannah, Valhalla, Indralok. We have passage agreements with most realms of paradise. If we’re very fast and very blessed, we’ll catch the scent.”
Rami abruptly felt less an angel and more a hunting dog. But one look at Uriel’s hungry smile and he held his tongue. “And if we catch up with the librarian?”
“Ascertain whether she has the rest of the codex. Follow and impede if she does not. Hell cannot be allowed to acquire this book. And if she has it already . . .” Again, Uriel twirled the silver compass in her palm. She abruptly flipped her grip and drove the point into the desk. “She serves Hell. She is already damned. If the librarian seeks salvation, then Heaven’s justice will purify her.”
10
CLAIRE
Of course there are other libraries. The Unwritten is just one wing, though one of the largest. There are wings of poetry, wings of songs, wings of dying words and visions. The libraries maintain a prickly kind of alliance, separated by realms. If one library falls, it could signal the end for them all. The Library stands together.
The only exception to note is the Dust Wing, which houses all the works created and lost to time. But the less said about that dark hall, the better.
Librarian Bjorn the Bard, 1630 CE
It is our duty to maintain a cordial yet professional relationship with the other libraries. If only for the sake of the interworld loan. But one library wing is not like another. Do not trust librarians serving other tales.
Apprentice Librarian Yoon Ji Han, 1791 CE
SOMETIMES, WHEN CLAIRE ALLOWED herself a moment to reflect on the absurdity of her fate, she wished she could find the soul of old Father Roderick. It was one of the few memories she’d kept. He’d presided over her family’s parish and instilled in her, at the wicked age of eight, the deep fear of damnation of her immortal soul. She drifted away from it, as many children did, and grew up into a comfortable agnostic, or as much as was proper for the time. But now, literally residing in Hell, she wished to revisit those old conversations with Father Roderick. Father Roderick, who taught her the necessity of good Catholic guilt. In the end, guilt and self-recrimination were the worst sins for a soul.
What would the good father think to see her? Her current position in Hell was entirely due to her own soul’s self-imposed judgment. She dealt daily with condemned souls and demons because her own soul didn’t believe she deserved better.
And perhaps the most scandalous thing she could tell Father Roderick was, frankly, how comfortable it was. She had regrets, deep regrets, yes, about how she’d lived her life, the time she’d wasted. They were why she’d ended up in the Library. But the afterlife she’d built up was more than acceptable. The start had been rough, and there were the mistakes she made, hauntings she still pretended not to have. She was not completely insulated from Hell here in the Library.
But there was work to do, a purpose to her fate. And she owed something to those in her afterlife. She owed something to the Library, its books, Brevity. Now there were Leto and the damaged book to consider.
Claire found herself well suited for damnation. Sorry, Father Roderick.
By the time Claire and Leto returned, Brevity had put the hero to work trundling carts of books up from the recesses of the Library. The muse tolerated his sulky muttering with more aplomb than Claire would have, patting his slumped shoulder as she sent him off with another cart.
“Truthfully? Those books weren’t even due to be inventoried yet,” Brevity admitted as he disappeared into the stacks again. “But it keeps him busy. How was Andras?”
“Well-informed. Patronizing. Per usual.” Claire began to tick through her head as she calculated where to begin with the disasters on the Library’s plate. “How’s the hero doing?”
“He’s wearing a pout that could curdle milk, but otherwise he’s bucked up. He just wants to be called Hero. Like, for a name.” Brevity poured a new cup of tea for herself.
“That’s . . . quite the literal affectation.”
“That’s what I told him in less fancy words.” Brevity lowered her voice as the cart emerged from a back aisle. “He sure seemed set on it. Said he thought it had a certain je ne sais quoi. And that’s when I put him on inventory.”
Claire nodded and waved Leto over. No use putting this off. “Well done,