7

CLAIRE

It was my mistake. I thought I had nothing to lose, but there was so much I wasn’t willing to give up. The idea of redemption. The passage of time. Dear, sweet, stony Revka. I couldn’t lose her.

Malphas knew that from the start. I was doomed to failure, then. Doomed not because of what I lacked but for what I already had and would not relinquish.

I wish I could say I was sorry.

Librarian Poppaea Julia, 48 BCE

“Surely my paperwork was in order,” Claire said. Sound was restricted to inside her pen, but worry for the others distracted her. Out of the corner of her eye, Claire could see Brevity fidgeting, and beyond her Hero making some vague gestures. Probably telling the demons where to stick it, knowing him. It was difficult to focus, but fear was a great clarifier when Malphas smiled.

“Perfectly in order. I would expect nothing less from our dear Arcanist.” Malphas tipped her head. “Which is why you are here.”

The hair on the back of Claire’s neck prickled with warning. “I don’t understand.”

“We requested an inventory from the Unwritten Wing as well, of course. Standard practice.” She paused, and her fingers tapped the cuff of one perfectly tailored sleeve. Malphas in a pantsuit was almost more terrifying than when she was enrobed in the leather of her enemies. “What do you think we found?”

“Really, General, the intimidation of hypothetical questions is a little below you, isn’t it?”

“Not in this case.” Malphas looked pleased. “I’m honestly interested in your answer. What does the Library contain, Claire? Don’t tell me books. Because the discrepancies I’ve been finding are tantalizing.”

“I have no idea what you’re going on about.” Claire studied her nails and flicked an imaginary speck of dust away from her skirts. “What possible discrepancies? If the inventory is too complex for a demon to understand I’ll simply have to walk you—”

“No need to explain the entire Library, girl. Just one book. His.” Malphas pointed a finger, maintaining a steady, smug gaze all the while.

Claire’s heart bottomed out. She followed the line of Malphas’s finger, though she already knew where it pointed. Hero was in the midst of explaining something to his demon with broad, possibly fruit-related gestures. The demon looked uncomfortable. Hero looked delighted. Completely clueless of the danger he was in, as usual. Claire swallowed her fear before returning her gaze to Malphas. “Hero is no longer in my care. As you should well know, I am no longer librarian—”

“Indeed you are not. And I am not as young and quick as I used to be. So perhaps you can explain something for me.” At no time, in no reality, could Malphas be described as dull-witted. Her tight-lipped smile widened into what felt like the jaws of a trap. “The Unwritten Wing’s inventory indicated all books accounted for—except for his. An oddity, since I understand there are limits placed on your so-called Special Collections. But I was reassured when Librarian Brevity annotated that the book was in the care of the Arcane Wing for the time being.”

The air was already cold, but the frost in the realization made Claire finally shiver.

“Strange, then, how your inventory states everything is in its place. And makes no mention of a book on loan from the Unwritten Wing.”

They’d accounted for this. In the days of hollow clarity after the ink had disappeared into the Dust Wing and it became evident that Hero’s book was not coming back, Brevity and Claire had devised a simple plan. Falsify the inventory to cover up the loss of the ink, and should anyone inquire about Hero’s missing book, it would be on loan. They hadn’t accounted for Malphas actually understanding the workings of the interworld loan system, and Brevity had been forced to make up an excuse on the spot.

And they’d never thought Malphas would compare inventories. Stupid. Stupid. The only bureaucracy Hell loved was its own; there should have never been a demon with a mind for the details of paperwork.

Except, it seemed, Malphas.

“The Arcane Wing is not a lending kind of library.” Claire prayed her voice was not as unmoored as it sounded to her own ears. She built up her reasoning as fast as she talked. “As well you know—otherwise we would have every upstart demon at our door seeking items of power. Our inventory doesn’t have a line item for items in the wing on temporary loan.”

Rather than seem appeased, Malphas appeared to have been waiting for such an argument. “Then your curation process is flawed.” She stepped closer to the fence, making the cheap metal screech with one gloved hand. “Whatever shall we do about that, Claire?”

Claire’s nerves were screaming some very solid advice. To run, to take Hero and Brevity and run. But there was no escaping Hell; of that much she was certain. She’d already tried once before.

Instead, she heaved a loud sigh and forced herself to saunter closer to the fence herself, as if impatient to have this matter settled. She had to pick among the detritus on the floor. Her toe caught on one of the foil blankets and a soiled diaper tumbled out. Bile rose in her throat. “It’s a perfectly fine system, General. There are merely exceptions—”

“Claire, dear Claire.” Malphas interrupted her, lowering her voice to force Claire even closer. “There can’t be exceptions. You have always run such a tight operation. Really, I’ve always admired you for it. You could have almost been one of us.” She paused and then shook her head. “You’ve falsified inventory and lied to me. Either you have failed to meet your duty as Arcanist or you stand in treason to Hell. Which is it?”

“The Library does not owe allegiance to Hell,” Claire said lowly.

She hadn’t answered, but Malphas acted as if she had. She stepped back, nodding thoughtfully. “We host you, we grant you shelter, we exempt you from the fate of most mortals bound to this realm, and this is how you betray us. With secrets.”

“Hell thrives on secrets,” Claire snapped.

“Ah, but the Library isn’t of Hell,” Malphas echoed her softly. “So when power spikes and seeps out from around the edges of your little corner of the fiefdom, we notice. Power, Claire. The power that is only produced by new souls, unbound souls at that. What have you little bookworms stirred up? Failure or traitor, Claire. Which are you claiming to be?”

Words failed her. Claire remained silent.

Somewhere a fan had kicked on. As if the chilled and desolate concrete needed any cooling. It succeeded in taking away none of the stench of despair, but it dried out Claire’s face. She was forced to blink first, and Malphas clapped her hands together.

“We can clear all this up easily.” She made an imperious gesture and the other demons stepped back from the pens. There was a pop and sound returned to the world outside the pen.

“—and then I’d dribble honey on his . . .” Hero trailed off into the silence.

Malphas folded her arms. The tailored suit she wore was beginning to melt at the edges. A dark rust brown stain crept in at her cuffs, slowly muddling the pinstripe into bloody leather. “Show us his book. One stab is all it takes, correct? Send our little man here back into his book and that will verify what you say is true, that the book is functional and in the proper hands, and I can let go of more interesting questions.”

Claire could hear Brevity’s sharp intake of breath. A scuffling sound, as if Hero had stepped back. It wasn’t fear that Claire felt, for just that moment. It was a churning heat, of thirty years of struggle and grief coming to a red-hot head in her chest. Malphas toyed with her the way demons toyed with all mortals. The agony was that Claire had let her. It had been so easy to back her into an unwinnable choice. It would be suicide to refuse Malphas in her own court, but it would be murder to harm Hero, who was now very much fragile without his book.

“I will not,” Claire said softly.

The fans clicked twice more. The churning shadows of demons stirred. Malphas tilted her head back to smile at the ceiling. “Traitor, then.”

“Brevity! Hero!” Claire raised her voice, feeling frozen in place even as Malphas raised a hand. “Cut a path.”

“With pleasure.” Hero spun, flicking his sword out and hacking at the locked gate behind him. Sparks flew, and one solid kick sent the cheap metal screaming.

“I told you once, little Claire. Do you remember?” Malphas was still speaking. Her transformation was complete, again swathed in blood and leather and smoke. Red seeped from her eyes. Grandmother of ghosts, crone of the battlefield, warrior of the damned, general of Hell. “You will know it, when Hell comes for you.”

A clatter behind her, hopefully Hero freeing Brevity. Claire began to back up, stumbling over the soiled blankets but not daring to take her eyes off Malphas. Her back hit the pen fencing, and it was already vibrating as Hero hacked at the gate and smashed the lock.

“It’s been an enjoyable game, girl.” Malphas tilted her head. “Try to make it last.”

Only when Hero’s hand found her wrist did Claire dare to look away. Brevity was already at the door—curiously unchallenged by the guards—and held it open. Hero yanked Claire into a run.

Shadows turned to shards around them, threatening but distant. “Forget them,” she could hear Malphas mutter behind her. The next pronouncement sent ice through her veins. “Burn it. Spare nothing.”