The Library of the Unwritten - A. J_ Hackwith Page 0,82
course, but Hell prefers rumors to investigation. I . . . became librarian. Andras helped with that.” She tilted her head, considering his reaction. “Did you suspect?”
“That you banished your own mentor in a pique of infatuation? No.” That unpleasant smile formed on Andras’s lips again. “I suspected something tragic had occurred. You were . . . you were not as you are now, my girl. I wish you’d told me.”
“Wait.” Hero held up a hand and shot a look at Beatrice as if he’d just tasted something sour. “She did all that for you, killed for you, sentenced herself to Hell, and you still just . . . left?”
Beatrice’s gaze didn’t waver. “Yes, I left.”
“Such valor, such heroism.” Hero’s lip curled, something akin to real anger sharpening his gaze. “You obviously cared for her a great deal.”
Beatrice’s demeanor chilled. “Don’t presume to speak about things you don’t understand.”
“I understand perfectly a coward who—”
“Enough. It’s past.” The last thing Claire needed was two snarling heroes giving her a headache.
“You’re a murderer.” The pure venom in Leto’s whisper jolted the air in the room. Claire turned to find him staring at her with an alien look of disgust. “You killed someone who trusted you. For what . . . for a crush . . . for her?”
Claire’s mouth fell open. She expected judgment—deserved it, even—but not from quiet, thoughtful Leto. “It’s not like—” She reached out a hand, but the boy jerked back.
“Liar.” He said it with a cutting softness. His lips trembled, opening and closing around his disappointment. Leto turned and stalked out of the room. A moment later, there was the sound of the front door snapping shut.
“He’s . . . upset.” Hero stated the obvious, though it seemed to perplex him. “Shall I go after him?”
Claire shook her head. “No. He’s not wrong.” And, she thought bitterly, they had nowhere to go anyway.
She raised her face, looking at each of the remaining men in turn. She saw herself reflected in their eyes, changed. Respect, disgust—it didn’t matter. It was a grotesque kind of mirror. But when no one else stormed from the room, Claire straightened her shoulders and turned to Beatrice. “You became a book collector.”
Beatrice took a breath, a smile warming her serious features. “I did. Antiquities dealer, technically. Turns out, my previous experience as a protagonist didn’t leave me with many marketable skills besides tenacity.”
Claire made no effort to return the smile. “A book collector with pages of the Codex Gigas in a magically shielded city.”
“That does seem to be quite the coincidence,” Andras said.
Beatrice’s smile faded. “I found Mdina shortly after I escaped. If you’d come wi—” She stopped herself. Started again. “The codex find was a recent turn of events. I’d become a book collector, yes. I found a partner, Avery, with an interest in the obscure and arcane. I had gleaned just enough understanding from the Library to feed him bits of trivia to seem useful. I’d been chasing the rumors of the missing pages for years, only found them in the possession of an unaware French farmer’s family a few months ago. Avery got a lead out of nowhere. Tried to steal from me, before he passed. I should have seen it coming. Cancer riddled, at the end. Obsessed with gods and demons, immortality. I’d thought they would probably end up to be fakes, or copies, but I—I admit, I’d held out hope that if they turned out to be authentic—”
“You kept them here,” Andras interjected, eyes glittering and keen. “Did you read them? Do they really contain . . . ?”
“Not the issue at hand, Andras,” Claire said.
Beatrice risked a penitent look. Her hand hovered, as if her mind had a thought to reach out to Claire, but the rest of her knew better. “I knew if they were authentic, there was a chance . . . I knew someone from the Library would be after them. As I said, I had a man watch the gates.”
“For what purpose? To trap us here?”
“You’re not trapped. Just . . . shielded.” Beatrice faltered. Her hands were calloused from use, but just as slender as Claire remembered. They raked helplessly through her hair, once, and her curls came away softly mussed. “You are free to leave if you wish, but in the meantime, nothing can get in without an invitation. And I doubt the Hellhounds have the social graces to communicate with anyone.”
“As grateful as I am for invisible monsters, I—” A terrible