“I didn’t—” Claire bit her lip before speaking further. She very carefully looked anywhere but down at her hand. “I hadn’t expected it to work. It shouldn’t have worked. Unwritten stories aren’t supposed to last beyond their books, Rami. That’s the point of the Unwritten Wing—maintaining and caring for the books. Take Hero, for example; he’s stuck as he is because his book’s been damaged. If some part of a story can survive the destruction of its book, then what really are stories made of? The repercussions . . .”
Claire trailed off. Rami waited, but she didn’t continue, instead stared distantly at the fountain pen on the table as if it were a viper. It was a sentence she wasn’t prepared to finish—or couldn’t finish—and Rami knew better than to press her. Instead, he placed it in a context that was safe for both of them. “And the responsibility of the Arcane Wing in this scenario?”
Claire snapped back to herself. “Safeguard artifacts of power. You’re right—of course you’re right,” she said, though Rami really hadn’t said anything clever. “It doesn’t matter. Whatever this is, it’s too dangerous to experiment with. Hell has always been obsessed with the Library, and if they find out about this, they’ll turn their eyes on the Arcane Wing as well. And we’re not nearly so well warded as the Unwritten Wing.”
“When are we not under threat from demons?” Rami muttered. “But Brevity and Hero seemed to think—”
“Brevity will come around. In the meantime, we have to protect them from their incorrect assumptions.” Claire diverted her eyes again and began to fiddle with a stack of papers.
“Your hand?” Rami made a placating gesture as Claire glared at him. “I only ask because it’s my duty as your assistant to understand if you are working under any . . . diminished capabilities.”
“Do I look diminished to you?” Claire’s chin jutted up, and it was such a clear echo of Hero’s pride and mannerisms, as much as she faulted him for them. A distant fondness in his chest surprised Rami, but he pressed it down. He almost missed that she’d avoided answering the question.
“You know you look never less than a force of nature to me, ma’am.” He’d discovered quickly that accurate observations, spoken as plainly and earnestly as possible, toppled Claire’s defensive airs fastest. “My concern wasn’t for your ability to keep up appearances.”
“I—” Claire stopped herself and seemed to weigh the question. Her voice was softer when she spoke again. “I will let you know, when I know myself.”
It was subtle, and shocking, but only if you understood Claire well enough. Rami thought he did. Thought he knew what a free fall it would be to feel uncertain about your mind, especially for one so certain and capable as Claire. But Rami’s nature was to guide, not press and poke. He waited, giving her the silence to say more if she chose. But the woman just met his eyes and shook her head, ever so slightly.
“I’ll be in the back. Get those artifacts isolated,” she said over her shoulder, and Claire made a tactical retreat into the depths of the collection.
* * *
“POROUS” WAS A LOOSE attribute when one’s collection of curiosities numbered in the tens of thousands. Rami had hit a snag when he’d started cross-indexing with an item’s composition material. Paper and cloth were obvious, but now he was into the leathers. A stack of waxed dragon hides mocked him from the worktable, and the furrow in his brow deepened as he considered them. Yes, ink could stain leather, but what about variations? Waxed leather? Scale and aquatic varieties? There were too many variables, and Rami was shit at making these kinds of judgment calls.
On reflection, it should have been no surprise that he was a failure as an angel.
The great doors of the wing creaked on their hinges. Rami glanced up only long enough to frown at Hero’s face before focusing back on his work. “Don’t you ever have real work to do?”
“Watcher! Look at you, so industrious. Just the man I wanted to find. Odd thing, isn’t it?” Hero said as he approached, as if he hadn’t heard Rami. As if Rami was the kind of person Hero frequently sought conversation with. “Bits of book existing—surviving—that the librarians knew nothing about?”
“Not really.” Rami eyed Hero as the character made a circuitous route of the worktable. “A travesty like Andras’s failed coup has never been attempted before.”
Hero paused, leaning down to inspect some petrified fingers that lay on a bed of velvet on a side table. “Perhaps not on that scale, but surely books have been lost before. Mishandling, accident, all those distinctly human errors.”
The finger bones had a paralytic curse attached to them, Rami recalled. He should really warn Hero. “Are you trying to make a point, or simply enjoying the sound of your own voice?”
“Better than your endless stoicism. I swear, it’s like a dull blade against stone.”
He definitely wasn’t going to warn Hero. The fingers were only a little paralytic, after all. Rami shrugged. “How else do you keep a blade sharp?”
Hero’s fingertips paused over the artifact and surprise tugged at the arch of his brow. “Repartee? I didn’t think you had it in you, old boy.”
“Don’t call me boy,” Rami grumbled. “I’m older than your maker’s maker. You have a point, don’t you?”
A clever look bloomed on Hero’s face. “Why, yes, I do. Cheeky of you to ask.”
Rami stared for a beat until the salacious edge of Hero’s smile sank in. “You . . .” He needed to clear his throat. “Save it for the damsels.”
“Not when I know it irritates. I’m quite aware how repellent I am to you.” Hero hummed. Rami steeled himself for another round of endless nattering, but instead Hero braced his hands on the table between them and leaned forward. “Never mind that. As I was saying . . . it raises the question, what else does the Library not know? What really are unwritten books?”
Nonporous; that decided it. The dragon hide
