“It is for that reason I am attempting to find answers,” Claire finished, turning the strain in her voice into an overprecise tone that sounded wrong even to her ears. “I should have consulted with you sooner, Walter. I do apologize. Since Andras’s coup attempt I have been . . . preoccupied.”
“You been hiding.”
“I’ve been working.” Claire allowed the sharp edge to turn into a prickle now. “As you would know if you and the rest of Hell hadn’t been mysteriously absent in our time of need.”
“You wouldn’t have wanted me there, Miss Claire,” Walter said solemnly. “Not many people do.”
“Walter . . .” Claire started but quieted as he raised his beefy hands.
“Nah, ma’am. I don’t mean it like that. The nature of what I am—” His lips pulled tight, into a small smile that was unintentionally ghoulish. “No one invites me in, if they can help it. I’m glad I wasn’t there.”
“I understand what you mean.” Claire knew they’d come right up to the cutting edge of losing Hero. Leto. Even herself. But the rows of bodies turned to ash drifted to the forefront of her mind again, like a cloud. “But Death was there, with, or without, invitation. We lost so many.”
“Oh. I’m not supposed ta take sides,” Walter confided in a whisper. “But I don’t reckon those demon critters consider it much of a loss.”
“I wasn’t—” Claire frowned. “I was talking about the damsels. The books.”
“Oh.” Walter stopped and diverted a constipated look at his knuckles. “Right. Right.”
Giant shoulders strained at the seams of his suit as he abruptly found a jar on the opposite wall that was an inch out of alignment. Walter was not a paragon of subterfuge even at the best of times, so Claire allowed him a full minute of nervous fiddling before she chased after him. “Walter. You don’t know anything about the destruction of the books and this ink that’s turned up, do you? Because we’ve been friends for a long time. I know a friend would tell me if he had information to help.”
Walter’s shoulders twitched up to his ears. His thumb assiduously blotted a speck of dirt off the jar named Martha’s Vineyard.
“Walter?” Claire leaned her hands on the counter, precisely where he couldn’t miss her blackened knuckles.
The narrow bottle next to that was labeled The Isle, and it swirled a sparky gold and cherry blossom pink. Walter tapped the glass and didn’t meet Claire’s eyes when he cleared his throat. “Mind giving me a hand a minute, ma’am? Them lower shelves get dusty and my knees ain’t what they used to be.”
Walter probably meant that statement literally rather than figuratively, but Claire was intrigued enough to duck behind the counter and join him in the tiny alcove of jars. “These here?”
Walter passed her a cloth in confirmation. Claire gave him a narrow look before beginning to wipe down jars that had destinations such as Highever, Illeri, Minneapolis, and one labeled, inscrutably, The Corn. Claire knew Walter held pathways to more than just Earth, but she’d never seen these jars before. “Thank small favors that the Library cleans itself,” she said, for lack of anything else. “I might have taken a turn homicidal if I’d had to dust books for thirty years.”
“Library’s all about preserving. I never minded a bit of dust if it kept things interesting,” Walter said, seeming to relax into the chore. “After a while everything needs a good shake-up.”
“How long have you been in this office, Walter?” Claire moved on to the next shelf down, which was headed by a primary-color explosion labeled simply P. Town. Claire was almost positive the colors swirled into a smile to wink at her. Next to it, a frosty void of black stayed mostly confined to a jar labeled Terminus Systems. The jars on the lower level seemed less used, quieter. The colors swirled and stayed mostly inside their glass.
Walter hesitated, because he was either reluctant to answer or reluctant to remember. “Not so long,” he finally said. “Just you Library folk come and go so fast.”
“Bjorn was here for seven hundred years,” Claire pointed out.
“Ah yeah. Think he came around for a brew once,” Walter said with a toothy grin.
Claire wiped down a couple of very old jars—Kingston, Alexandria, Pax—but her blackened fingers hesitated over a squat jar, almost empty, labeled Summerlands. She compared it to the other destinations on the shelf and had a thought that came with a memory of haunted leather and Beatrice’s smile. Impossible things that wouldn’t stay bottled. “Walter, it’s not just colors out of their jars. I’m . . . seeing other things. What is it? Why am I seeing things now?”
For a moment, the hitch of his shoulders convinced Claire that he was going to shy away again, but eventually Walter wiped his hands with his rag and looked thoughtful. “Artists always got an abundance of soulfulness, ya know? That’s why they got plenty left over, sloshin’ around down here.”
“I wouldn’t have called myself an artist when I was alive,” Claire said drolly. She hadn’t allowed herself that: a daughter, a mother, a bookkeeper with quiet flights of fancy, yes, but not an artist. She didn’t need a primer on what made librarians in Hell, but she could see Walter working himself up to—or around—a point.
“Yeh ain’t supposed to be wearing that stuff.” Walter cast a worried glance again at her hand. “It ain’t natural, wearing other people’s ink. ’Tain’t natural at all.”
“If there is a remedy, let’s hear it.” Claire had to suppress her urge to get testy. She sighed and straightened to standing again. “If this is unwritten ink—the stuff of the stories that we lost—then why attack me? What am I supposed to do with immortal ink?”
“Immortal?” Walter blinked and abruptly stopped his cleaning. His face formed a brief ravine
