The Archive of the Forgotten

by A J Hackwith

  “I’ve tried to be a lot of good things for each of them, in every way they need to be loved. But if you threaten them, if you take one single step closer . . .” Hero’s breath broke. He slid his foot forward, relishing it as Probity jumped back a step at the end of his blade. “For you, for their sake, I will be the wickedest and worst monster. That’s a promise.”

  Muses were always in motion, so when Probity held still it was an unnatural sensation. Her breathing was fast as she tried to get her emotions under control. “What happened to Verve?”

  “Who?” Hero tilted his head. “The other monster you created? We encountered her in the stacks. I fed her my book, and she died.”

  “You fed her . . . ?” Shock, horror, and a flash of grief cycled quickly through Probity’s expression before settling into a wary realization. “You really mean your book is gone. A character surviving past its book. That’s an abomination, if not impossible. You are a monster.”

  “I could be. As I said, I am still discovering what I am.” Hero’s brittle smile cracked as he flicked the blade again. “Your experiment has failed, muse. Take your people and go. The Library isn’t your plaything.”

  “My people.” Something of the anger withered and died in Probity’s eyes as she repeated the words. Her gaze went past Hero’s shoulder to Brevity again. She took her next breath like one would take a punch in the gut. “She . . . I’d hoped . . . But you’re right.”

  The hostility deflated out of the air then, but Hero kept his sword leveled as Probity crouched down, slung the unconscious Gaiety in her arms. She started to turn, then stalled. When she looked down Hero’s blade, it was as if it wasn’t even there. “Do me a favor, monster.”

  “Nah,” Hero said, but Probity didn’t miss a beat.

  “Tell her . . .” Her lips worked a moment before she found the words. “. . . tell her . . . ideas never die. Just . . . tell her I said that. That I still say that.”

  Then Probity appeared to fold the air around them like origami until they disappeared in a displacement of dust.

  Hero hesitated, frozen in place a moment longer. His pulse thudded in his ears, and he half expected some new threat to emerge out of the deep shadows of the Dust Wing. But nothing moved except the fragile drift of tattered and tormented books. It was so still that Hero’s eyes stung. It must have been the dust.

  A small grunt behind him reentered his thoughts. “Rami?” Hero lowered the sword, not quite entirely dropping his guard as he glanced behind him.

  They were a trio of statues, Claire painted in an oblivion of blacks and Brevity’s blue skin as pale as a robin’s egg. Rami knelt between them, a hand on each of their faces. The concentration knit his face, as if he was doing personal battle with the ink. Hero felt a strangling feeling in his chest at the thought he was going to lose them, all three of them, right here and now. He couldn’t do that. He could bear to live without his story; he could bear to live as a servant of the Library; he could even bear to live as an abomination without a book. But if the Fates took these three maddening souls from him now, he would give himself over to the despair and eternity of the Dust Wing for good.

  Then Rami drew a breath and whispered a single word: “Peace.”

  The invading pallor in Brevity’s skin retreated and appeared to swirl, absorbing into the thread of inspiration twined on her arm. Dapples of brown caught Hero’s eye as the ink appeared to dry up and flake away from Claire. Both women fell like deadweight, Rami sagged, and Hero just managed to sweep forward to support him. It ended with the four of them entangled on the floor of the Dust Wing.

  They were a tiny island of warm skin and wheezing breaths in the center of a tomb. Hero struggled to right Brevity against his shoulder. He distantly noted the tear of paper beneath his heel as another Dust Wing tragedy, but for a moment—just a moment—he didn’t care. He didn’t care because Rami’s chest was heaving and Claire was unconscious but drooling against his feathered trench coat.

  When Rami managed to pull himself together and met Hero’s gaze, there was no way to hide the relief that burst onto Hero’s face with a grin. “You did it, old man.”

  “I didn’t—I did, but . . .” Rami paused, bowing his head for a moment, and Hero realized he was late recognizing the tears on the Watcher’s cheeks. “So many souls, Hero.”

  “Souls?”

  Rami’s look was searching when he finally met Hero’s gaze. His brow still set with worry and streaked with dust and sweat. “That’s what the ink is, the fragment souls of books. Remember what the golem’s letter said? The written and the writer are the same. Books and authors are made of the same stuff.” Rami shook his head wonderingly. “I wondered, as an angel I can reach lost souls, and then it seemed too dire to not at least try . . .”

  Rami trailed off, but the logical leap was too much for Hero’s mind to make. Books didn’t have souls. They had characters and pages and story, and good ones might seem soulful, but books were—Hero was . . .

  Hero wasn’t sure of anything anymore. He looked away. Most of the jet-black ink had flaked away from Claire’s skin, even if a mythical kind of oil-slick shine clung to her tangled hair. She seemed merely napping against Rami’s chest, more peaceful than Hero had ever seen her. “Do you think they knew? All this time?”

  Rami considered and shook his head. “I don’t know. But I do know we should get them out of here. Let’s go home.” He lifted Claire easily, even if he was slower to get his feet under him. Whatever he had done had worn on the angel as well. Brevity was light enough that Hero had no such trouble.

  “I’m—I’m glad you’re okay,” Rami said quietly. He took his time drawing a feather. It made a complicated pattern through the air in what Hero assumed would be a means to travel back to the Library. “I heard part of what you said. To Probity.”

  “Did you? How distracting.” Hero shifted Brevity in his arms and stepped closer under Rami’s arm without quite looking him in the eyes. “Of course I’m fine. Always fine.”

  Rami was terrible at telling lies, but not at reading them. Hero could feel the weight of his concerned frown as feathers and the frost-clean smell of Rami’s angelic magic kicked up through the dust. His voice was soft and lost in Hero’s hair. “I’m glad. I was afraid this—this was going to change things.”

  It already has, Hero wanted to say, but the Dust Wing folded in on itself and the sweep of Rami’s sheltering magic stole the air from his lungs.

  37

  HERO

  I still feel the place in my chest where my story should be.

  —My book. I meant my book. Where my book should be. That’s what I meant.

  Where is a goddamn eraser for this log?

  Apprentice Librarian Hero, 2020 CE

  HERO KNEW HOW STORIES began. Once upon a time. After hundreds of Dust Wing books passed through him, he even understood how stories end. Happily ever after. Except when not. Nothing had prepared him for the agony of the middle. The hollow pocket against his heart where his book should be was a great, aching question mark. It was an end; it was a beginning; it was wrong and completely foreign terrain.

  If this was what it was like living outside a story, Hero thought maybe death had been kinder. He had these thoughts as Rami swam them in and out of the dark, tripping across nowheres and in-betweens until the familiar glass zoo of Walter’s transport office took shape around them. He walked down familiar hallways and thought of endings and beginnings and the terrifying watercolor of unknowns that spanned the two. He thought of Rami and Claire and Brevity, and the fragile way they kept going on after the end. And then he said the exact opposite of what he was thinking.

  “Well, this is familiar,” Hero pronounced as he followed Ramiel through the doors of the Arcane Wing. Rami strode to the nearest couch and laid Claire down with a painstaking gentleness.

  An elbow shifted into his ribs. “I’m awake
this time.” Brevity’s words were a slurry of exhaustion. She’d started to stir not long after they’d reappeared in the transport office. She looked pale and grumpy. “Put me down, please.”

  “My pleasure.” Hero picked the armchair and carefully extracted himself until Brevity was in a somewhat comfortable sitting position. “It’s my personal policy not to coddle suicidal idiots.”

  “I would say everyone present falls under that classification,” Rami said with a level look in Hero’s direction.

  “I saved your life.” Hero had begun making tea without realizing it. He stopped, glared into the teapot in his hands, and chose a relaxing chamomile. Claire would hate it when she woke up. When.

  The water had heated to a near simmer by the time Brevity heaved herself up on her elbows, as if taking stock. “We should be in the Unwritten Wing.”

  “I didn’t think it prudent to bring you in proximity to the books until I knew you were all stable,” Rami said evasively. “How’s your arm?”

  “You mean before you knew if I had developed a taste for story flesh or not,” Brevity said, and deflated back into the armchair. She stuffed her arm under a throw pillow before adding, a bit sullenly, “I haven’t, by the way.”

  “As the sole remaining representative of the Library who has not gone under an existential transformation—”

  “I didn’t transform!” Hero squawked.

  “—or existential crisis heretofore unknown by our understanding of the universe,” Rami continued smoothly, “I feel comfortable ordering all of you to sit down and stay down until I can at least create a concise record of this disaster.”

  “Not as if anyone can read your chicken scratch,” Claire mumbled into the couch cushions. She slit her eyes open and grimaced at the light. As if in response, the lamps of the Arcane Wing dimmed a notch. She squinted with a sour expression. “What are you lot staring at?”

  “Boss! Oh—oh gods. I’m so glad you’re okay.” Tears started to well at Brevity’s eyes before the look suddenly dried up into stricken. Her shoulders started to creep up toward her ears. “Claire—”

  “You have nothing to apologize for, so don’t you dare.” The harsh edges fell away from Claire’s tone. She made an aborted attempt to sit up before consigning herself to the couch. “You were doing what you thought was best. That’s what a librarian does.”

  “I lied to you. I tricked you,” Brevity insisted.

  “And I allowed a damsel to come to harm, entered the Library, and promptly terrorized the damsel suite without asking.” Claire’s mouth twisted and for the first time she looked down at her unstained hands. Not a trace of the ink remained. She rubbed her thumb against her forefinger. “That wasn’t right. I’m sorry. We were both operating under stressful concerns.”

  Moisture returned to Brevity’s eyes, so Hero hurried along to a different point of relevance. “All the same, making an enemy of the Muses Corps would be a bother.”

  Brevity took the distraction. “Probity . . . ?”

  “Left. Along with Gaiety.” Hero hesitated, sending a questioning look to Rami. There was a lot to disclose, now or later. He sighed when the angel shook his head grimly.

  Brevity’s face crumpled. She mulled this over with a distant sorrow. “She won’t go back to the muses, not with Gaiety. I can’t see them tolerating something like that. Verve and Gaiety were so loyal to her, I don’t even know how much she told them. I—I think Probity had her own ideas about stories, ones that no sane muse in the corps would ever have endorsed.” Her mouth twisted, bitter. “Which is why she came to me.”

  “From my brief acquaintance, she seemed to trust you and hold you in high regard,” Rami said.

  Brevity’s smile was thin with skepticism, and Hero couldn’t stand the tedious cycle of self-blame a moment longer. He flopped onto Claire’s couch noisily and began to pick dried mud from his coat. “At least now I can officially say I’ve seen a more odious place than the Unwritten Wing. You’ve been grandstanded by the Dust Wing, ladies.”

  He waited for Claire’s sharp rebuttal, or at the very least a dismissive noise. When none came, he turned his head. She had tucked her legs to her chest and was nearly swallowed by the pillows Rami had piled around her. That, and the vulnerable uncertainty in her eyes, gave her a more delicate appearance than she normally allowed. Delicate—not breakable—like a fine blade. She studied him with disbelief. “You’re really okay.”

  Claire never asked questions, not really. She wielded challenging statements and demanded verification. Hero cleared his throat and studied the ragged tear the muse’s claws had made in the shoulder of his coat. These stains would never come out. Ink and stains and gods knew what else. He was going to have to ask Brevity if Hell had a tailor soon. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

  “You are. I hadn’t been sure you would be,” Claire said with unnatural quiet. Some of the tension left her and she unwound herself from her seat to straighten her shoulders. She held out a palm. “Hand it over, then.”

  Hero was familiar with that pose, that posture, that steel in her eye as sharp as a scalpel. His stomach dropped, and he found his filthy cuff fascinating again. “Hand over what?”

  “Your book. Let’s see what a muck you’ve made of it this time and how many hours of back pain and labor I—” Claire paused. “That I or Brevity is in for to fix it.”

  It was under his nails. The damned clay was under his perfectly nice nails. He cast about for a file, but of course Claire wasn’t the type to keep appropriate grooming products on hand.

  “Hero?” Claire said.

  “I—” Hero cleared his throat and had to count to three before he had the courage to raise his gaze to meet Claire’s. His insides felt a little hollow. “I don’t have it.”

  Claire’s eyes flew wide. “You lost your book?!”

  “I didn’t—” Hero started, but Claire was already halfway off the couch, though she didn’t let go of the arm for support.

  “Of all the irresponsible— How are you still sitting here if you left it in the Dust Wing? You grand fool, we need to go back immediately and—”

  “Claire.” Rami caught her before she could stumble away from the couch. He firmly guided her back in a way only Rami could get away with. “He didn’t lose it.” Once she was seated again, he glanced at Hero. His tone was sympathetic but unforgiving. “Tell her.”

  Rami’s eyes were encouraging, and Claire’s were confused. A phantom of panic threatened in Hero’s throat. It would change everything, everything he didn’t want changed, he realized. The thought descended like a shock of water. Being a broken book—Claire’s pain in the ass, Brevity’s assistant, Rami’s . . . dear gods, whatever he was to Rami now. He didn’t want any of it to change. He didn’t want to run away, or fix his book, or be anything but what they accepted him as. He glanced to Brevity for reprieve, but her look was curious as well.

  The mud on his coat had somehow coated his tongue and Hero had to swallow again before he could start. “There was a struggle, with the muse in the Dust Wing. She . . . consumed . . . my book.”

  “What?” Brevity startled to her feet, and she was at least steadier than Claire was.

  “It’s gone,” Hero said to the floor.

  “That’s impossible.” Claire’s voice was oddly clipped, like she’d dug her fingernails into the shreds of her logic. She shook her head. “Explain yourself.”

  By the time Hero had haltingly described his version of events, the chamomile had gone so oversteeped even he wouldn’t try to serve it to Claire. Rami had interjected corrections a couple of times, and picked up on what he saw when Hero fell. Hero had gotten to the part where he’d kissed Rami and chose editorial discretion to skip quickly over it with a rush of heat in his cheeks. Rami sat there just looking calm and supportive. Damn the man. Claire had started out with interrogative interruptions but had slowly dropped to silen
ce.

  No one was eager to jump into analysis, which made Hero grateful. He managed to listen to the tick of the Arcane Wing’s cursed clock count a dozen more seconds before Brevity sniffled hard. She was wiping her eyes furiously but saved a watery grin for Hero. “It sounds like you almost—I woulda never forgiven myself if we’d lost you in there.”

  “Maybe you did,” Hero said ruefully. His book was gone; that was the part a librarian should have been worried about.

  “We didn’t. You remain. Just as the ink remained.” Claire had wrapped her arms over her chest as if she was holding on for dear life, but there was a distant look in her eyes. Hero could feel Claire’s mind turning like an astrolabe, aligning events along some unknown mental star charts. She broke the spell with a blink and focused on Rami. “When you said you thought you could track Hero to the Dust Wing, was it—”

  “Souls,” Rami finally said the word that made the entire room feel like a released breath. “That’s how I track anything. And it worked. I began to consider the idea after I read that line in the Unsaid Wing. The old Arcanist said the written and the writer are the same. And then the soul bridge in Chinvat tried to pass judgment on Hero, and . . . well.”

  “Stories—she meant stories. But if they’re made of the same stuff, then that means stories are made of souls—” Brevity’s eyes went wide as saucers.

  “No,” Claire whispered, and Hero’s heart dropped. He felt irrationally disappointed as she started shaking her head. It shouldn’t matter, her reaction. But somehow it did, because they were talking about what he was, and she was and . . .

  “I would have known. I would have had to have known. Gregor would have told me. Or the log—” Claire straightened as if she’d touched a live wire. “The well. Rosia. I need to see the well.”