locked them behind her. Her knees hit an unwritten rug, and the disappointment she felt was a distant, muted thing. She was devoting too much effort to trying to stop her short, rabbit-quick breath.
Of course, she hadn’t made it to Walter. Of course, she’d not warned Claire, had run instead to cower and hide. Muses could imagine anything, inspire anything in an author, but for themselves? All Brevity gave herself was fear.
She was here now, but even her mounting anxiety wanted her to do something. Her hands trembled as she dug through the drawers and came up with a small silver box. Brevity squinted at the words inside, cursing Claire’s cramped handwriting. Eventually, she sorted out three squares of translucent vellum, one violet, one red, one black. Dreams. Blood. Ink. The fibers burned her fingers, and Brevity forced herself to focus on the pain as she uncovered the flame of a gas lamp. One paper, then another, went up in a shriek of smoke as Brevity mumbled the written commands. Her voice was hoarse, words dragged over broken glass, but the Library understood her anyway. The air tightened, then snapped in a hiss of anise and ash. One, two, three wards, sealing off the Unwritten Wing from the rest of existence once again.
The air took on an unnatural silence, the taste of Hell fading from the roof of Brevity’s mouth. She fell back against the desk, thinking for a moment she could summon up a feeling of silliness, of shame. If the silliness came, that would mean she was wrong about the shadows, wrong about the fear. It would still be a failure, having run back here instead of investigating further, but at least that would mean that she hadn’t lost her chance to summon help in the face of an actual threat. Claire could get back and scold her for sealing the Library, and they could laugh about it. Brevity could take her scolding and make it into a joke and—
Dust fluttered from the shelves. The papers on Claire’s desk rippled as if an errant breeze had shivered by. Brevity’s breath stuttered, clenching when a barely audible boom vibrated. Far away, like a soft finger plucking strings. Nails dragging along glass. An outer ward, being probed by a curious hand, too weak to knock properly. Whoever it was should give up, go away, realize the Library was closed and—
The next shudder reached in between her ribs, jostling her chest as the whole wing creaked. Again, increasing in frequency and strength until it was a war drum. Because that’s what it was, not a knock, not an idle curiosity of a passing demon. Someone was knocking, and would keep knocking until it was granted entrance. Brevity’s resolve shriveled in her chest, strangling her breath along with it, and she sank to the floor alone.
25
LETO
I tried writing it down, my life, so I wouldn’t forget it. Where I was born. My parents. My friends, my loves. My husband, my child. But every time I try to write down something from my mortal life in the log, the words melt into the paper like watermarks. Gone as soon as the ink dries. The log is a record for librarians, not people. I can feel its judgment.
But what happens when the inevitable occurs? When the world forgets me, so I begin to forget myself? What do I become, when I am nothing but a librarian?
Apprentice Librarian Claire Hadley, 1986 CE
MDINA DIDN’T SEEM TO be a natural habitat for the young. Bored teenagers and young children peppered the steady stream of tourists at the entrance, but the farther Leto wandered into the city, taking narrow stone-walled alleys at random, the fewer people his own age he saw.
Fewer people in general, really. The buildings and streets were built out of that same worn island stone. Thick flagstones swallowed his footsteps as he took corners without a destination in mind. Stern signs hung at residential intersections, declaring that the city residents took the name Silent City seriously. As long as he was quiet, no one questioned what a bleary-eyed American teenager was doing so far from the tour buses.
It was probably fortunate, as his head felt like an oil slick just waiting for a light. Thoughts black and toxic, coiled with hurt. He’d felt these black thoughts invade before, more often when he was his full demon self in Hell, but this didn’t feel like an artificial nastiness. When he had felt the demon thoughts