12

CLAIRE

History is told by the victors, isn’t that how it goes? Fight for something and lose, you’re insurrectionists, conspirators, terrorists. Fight for something and win, you’re rebels, freedom fighters, founding fathers. History is a story told in past tense, the best kind of propaganda.

What everyone forgets is that, at one point in the story, every villain thinks they are the hero.

History happens in the edit.

Librarian Gregor Henry, 1986 CE

Claire took the time to scrub the soot and ashes from her skin once they returned to the Unwritten Wing. Brevity had never moved into the restoration room that Claire’d used as an office, and there was still a small wardrobe of clothes—mostly castoffs and knitted monstrosities from the damsels—tucked in the back corner. She found a pair of loose trousers that didn’t have nearly enough pockets for her taste, but Claire paired them with a cardigan with deep enough pockets to hide half an encyclopedia.

All pockets were best judged by book size, in Claire’s opinion.

She left her streaked and singed clothes behind in a hamper. She’d been in the Library long enough to know that, given a few days, the next time she went seeking the wardrobe her garments would be whole again. Hell was a place for forgetting; even items wanted to forget their damage after enough time.

By the time she emerged from the back room, Brevity—bless the muse down to her toes—already had a pot on. It appeared to have just come off the hot plate, and Brevity was deeply engrossed in flipping through the logbook, the cup at her elbow still steaming but already forgotten. Claire poured herself a cup and took a sip, pleasantly surprised to find it was a strong Darjeeling rather than the fruity nonsense Brev preferred.

“Hero doesn’t like Earl Grey, else I would already have your favorite,” Brevity explained without looking up.

“Bergamot is a scent, not a flavor, thank you,” Hero said.

“Only because you’ve never had good Earl Grey.” Claire eased into a seat nearby. “Americans.”

“We should discuss what our next course of action is,” Rami said, perhaps because he knew how Claire and Hero enjoyed a good tiff.

Claire shrugged her shoulders with a defeated air. “What action? She’ll cut us off. Malphas isn’t stupid. She knows from watching Andras what a direct assault on the Library will bring.”

“Damn straight,” Hero muttered.

“But we can’t wait her out, either,” Rami cautioned. “Malphas will not be idle while she’s got us cornered in here. And Malphas has had eternity to cultivate superior strategy.”

Claire tilted her head thoughtfully. “How lucky we have our own immortal being as well.”

Rami nearly dropped the fragile teacup in his big hands. “I beg your pardon?”

“Both you and Malphas are angels—were angels,” Claire corrected when Rami opened his mouth to argue. She tapped her fingers on her knee contemplatively and her glance veered between Hero and Rami. “You know how she thinks, how she’ll try to root us out. And you, Hero, you’ve already fought and won a war.”

“A fictional one,” Hero reminded her with a dry air.

Claire made a dismissive noise. “It makes it no less real. You have told me that often enough—will you deny it now?” When Hero merely pursed his lips, Claire nodded. She didn’t have a plan, not yet, but she could see the pins on which they would hang it. “If I asked you two to put your heads together, can we hold the Library?”

“No,” Rami said grimly.

“Definitely not,” admitted Hero.

“Not forever, obviously. Can we buy ourselves time?” Claire said. “They’ll loot and burn this place to the ground, as has been done to libraries countless times through history. Hell is not an option anymore. So what are our options?”

The silence was painful, needling all of them. No one wanted to say the obvious option, so Claire did it for them. “We could run, of course. Tell the damsels they’re off the books, then every soul for themselves. Abandon ship; maybe those of us with souls can work our way to Mdina for sanctuary before Hell notices. The Library will have an interest in Hero, of course, and I’ll be in another ghostlight situation, but Rami, Brevity, you two would have no trouble slipping off—”

“Shut uuuup.” Brevity’s outburst startled everyone. She made a dramatic show of flopping back in her chair. “Heck and Hades, boss, you know none of us are doing that. We can’t do that; we can’t just abandon the books like that.” Brevity paused, pinning Claire with an uncharacteristically stern look. “You would never do that. And you know it.”

Wouldn’t she? Brevity sounded so certain. It was a kindness. Claire sifted through the burst of gratitude and doubt. There was some time, at some point in the past, when she would have. It was exactly the kind of abandonment and escape she’d planned with her own main character, Beatrice, wasn’t it? And even after then . . . given a guilt-free excuse to walk away. To escape the Library. To choose freedom. She couldn’t say for sure that she wouldn’t have taken it.

But now . . . now.

“I suppose I wouldn’t,” Claire said. “But I am honest when I say I don’t know what option that leaves us instead.”

“Besides pointless heroism,” Hero muttered.

“No. No more martyrs,” Rami said with a heavy look at the rest of the room.

“Hell would not accept a single sacrifice anyway.” Claire spared a glance for Brevity. She appeared distracted, dragging her thumb over the edge of the logbook pages with a rhythmic thrrrrrp sound. Claire considered leaving it there. Simple, agreeable, unsaid. Unfortunately she had lost that right, lost the assumption of good, humane intentions over her checkered history with the Library. She had to say it, for herself. Claire sighed. “But the books here have souls, in some way. They’re . . . they’re individuals. I brought them to this point, whether they were my books or not, whether I’m librarian or not.” She felt the weight of Brevity’s sudden attention on her. “Whether librarian or not. I can’t walk away.”

“People are not a cause,” Hero said, almost to himself. “You admit that you’re granting stories personhood?”

“I am not in a position to grant anything. We should not be in the business of arbitrating the worthiness of souls,” Claire said harshly. They were all facing her with encouraging looks. She frowned. “Don’t you dare try to give me a gold star and a pat on the head for finally wrapping my brain around the obvious and performing the bare minimum of humanity.”

Hero shrugged. “Sure, but you won’t be half as fun to mock now.”

Claire’s frown deepened, and Rami was the first to return to the point at hand. “Is moving the books an option? Does every Library have the ability to relocate as the Unsaid Wing did?”

Claire shook her head. “Libraries tend to take on the nature of their charges and their librarians. The Unsaid Wing is full of letters and secrets—those are never meant to stay in one place. The Unwritten Wing is more staid.”

“A place meant for waiting, eternally,” Hero said, and Claire nodded.

“Brevity can confer with Echo, of course . . .” Claire paused. It appeared Brev still wasn’t listening. “But the Unwritten Wing was never made to move. Books only leave by means of their human authors via muses—normally.” Claire was reasonably sure that Hero didn’t even require eye contact for that remark.

“Humans . . .” A tenor in Brevity’s voice made Claire turn. She still had that faraway look. Her gaze was simultaneously on the logbook and beyond it. Then her chin snapped up. “But that’s what humans do. That’s it.”

“What?” Claire couldn’t help her skepticism. The memory of Probity’s accusations was still too fresh in her mind. “What do humans do, besides burn and destroy?”

“Rebel,” Brevity breathed, more animated every moment. She drummed her palms on the book in front of her with emphasis. “It’s all right here. Create and rebel. What’s more human than that?”

“Oh, I don’t know: cruelty over superficial differences, sticking flags in things, frozen yogurt, performative gender roles, war . . .” Hero counted off on his fingers.

Claire was well practiced at ignoring Hero by now. She tilted her head at Brevity. “I don’t understand.”

“What is frozen yogurt?” Rami asked in a fascinated tone.

“Oh! Poppaea.” The connections fired in Claire’s brain all at once. She stared as Brevity’s smile grew. A chill shot up Claire’s neck as the idea took hold. She glanced down at the giant weight of the Librarian’s Log in Brevity’s hands. “You’re talking about the story of Librarian Poppaea Julia.”

Brevity nodded.

“That’s . . . devious and suicidal.” Hero tilted his head. “I love it.”

“Um.” Rami cleared his throat. “Not all of us have been thoroughly versed in the history of the librarians.”

“Librarian Poppaea was the most interesting one of the lot. Present company excluded,” Hero explained. “She was a delightful librarian’s librarian during the—what? Early Roman? Or after? It’s all Greek to me. She got the idea in her head to defy Lucifer himself and contest the Library’s place in Hell. Her entries are incredibly cagey about it. A full-on rebellion. Against everyone.” Hero practically clapped his hands. “She failed, of course. Set off the whole Dark Ages—”

“She did not set off anything. And really, Dark Ages, Hero? That’s an outmoded view of history that lacks any nuance.” Claire sniffed, despite the blatant fact that he’d learned the history from her.

“Point is, she was frightfully clever and makes even our own dear Claire look like a teacher’s pet in comparison.” Hero waved away any pesky details. “She appeared to believe the Library should be sovereign of its own realm.”

“Maybe she was right,” Brevity ventured slowly. “Would any of this have happened if the Library was free from Hell—and free from anywhere, really? Would this have happened if we—the Library, all of us—worked together?”

Hero was always eager for a bloody revolution, but Claire caught the way words like “freedom” and “cooperation” began to catch Rami’s interest. She shook her head. “The point is, she failed. She failed, she disappeared, and the Unwritten Wing was rudderless for a century. We have no reason to think an attempt now would end any different.”

“Unless we avoided her mistakes,” Hero suggested.

“We don’t even know what she did.” Claire gestured to the desk. “The Librarian’s Log doesn’t say. As I recall from the official chronicle, she talks about challenging Hell and establishing a new realm and gets all very vague and ominous and then it just . . . ends. I’ve never found anything specific about how she did it. Unless the log has deigned to reveal something more to you, Brev?”

She could see by the way Brevity’s smile fell that it hadn’t.

“We could ask the books,” Hero insisted. “Obviously they were here to witness it.”

“Not necessarily.” The hope seemed to be deflating out of Brevity as she spoke, and Claire felt a deep stab of guilt. “Something happened to the Library after Poppaea failed. I don’t know if any books were lost, but I’ve never seen a book wake up that would have witnessed that time. Books that old either don’t know anything or just . . . don’t wake up.”

“And it would be too dangerous to try to wake them,” Claire said.

“As you would know,” Hero said cheerily.

“Who else would know?” Rami asked, before Claire could entirely murder Hero with her eyes.

“No one that would talk to us,” Brevity said after a long pause. She sank down in her seat behind the desk. Her fingers plucked listlessly at the scars on her forearms. Her blue skin was rough there, with a thin thread of black barely visible between puckered bits of skin. The aftermath of their encounter with the unresolved ink of lost stories. Claire thought of the Dust Wing again and shuddered. She could still almost taste the air clogged with regret and death.

 . . . Death.

It was a particularly foolish idea that she had just then. Really, Hero-like in its ridiculous scale. But as she watched Brevity fold in on herself, the idea stuck like a sliver and started to grow. Claire let out a long sigh. “Actually, there may be someone who knows and who might talk to us.”

Brevity looked up, hope so easily returning to her. Claire wished she had that skill. “Who? Who can we talk to?”