I couldn’t. There are irregularities that make no sense. The pages of the Library’s books have no detectable composition or construct. Books exist on the shelves with text already on their pages. Should one try to annotate or correct an unwritten book with any ink other than its own, the ink wicks away into the paper like water into a sponge. Nothing stays but what the book was born with. This explains the difficulty of repairing damaged books, but not why. Stories change and are changed by the reader. What are unwritten books made of or connected to that resists exterior alteration?
Could Fleur actually be right? How is that possible?
Librarian Yoon Ji Han, 1801 CE
PROBITY MAINTAINED HER SILENCE the long way back to the librarian’s desk. It was a sympathetic kind of silence, the kind of quiet meant to soothe and shore up. The wrongness stayed with Brevity, but at least with Probity here she didn’t feel alone. It allowed her to go through the motions of checking in on the damsels, reassuring them that they need not worry about scalpel-wielding former librarians for the rest of the day, and withdraw. The damsels had knit a community out of their limbo status in the Library, and it was tight as a fist. As cordial as Brevity was with the residents of the Unwritten Wing, she knew there was a distance she could never cross as librarian.
The desk was lit in a sleepy puddle of lamplight, like always. A teapot sat on a warming stone, a convenient magic as old as the Library. She’d brewed strawberry and rose hips this morning and likely still had half a pot waiting for her. The urge to shake off the unease was so strong she nearly called for Hero before remembering he was away. Instead, she reached the chair behind the desk and all but fell into it.
“You did the right thing.” Probity had come to perch just on the edge of the desk, right where Brev used to sit to check up on Claire.
Probity was more graceful than she was; the stacks of paper didn’t shift or become displaced. But it served to remind Brevity of the ache beneath the ache. “Did I?” Brevity said, and sank back with a sigh. “It doesn’t feel right.” The levels of not-right ground at her frayed edges.
“That woman had to be stopped.” Probity was somber with her certainty. She chewed on her lip a moment, and it was such a familiar habit that Brev almost smiled before Probity spoke again. “You made it sound as if she had done such a thing before.”
Brevity grimaced. “I’m sorry. We shouldn’t have subjected you to that . . . discussion.” The Library certainly had not put on a good show since Probity arrived. It wasn’t the impression she wanted the muses to have. It wasn’t the impression she wanted her friend to have. “You’re aware Claire was the librarian before me. She was a great librarian, and I learned everything from her. She just . . . ran the wing with a firmer hand than I can do.”
“Abuse should never be in a librarian’s repertoire.” The censure in Probity’s tone was streaked with horror. “To cut into a book like it is some kind of . . . kind of melon. It’s grotesque. Books are to be treasured, not dissected.”
It was, perhaps, a very good thing that Probity had not perchance visited while Claire had been in charge. When she put it that way, it did sound awful. “It wasn’t like that,” she insisted quietly. The urge to defend Claire was innate, and righter than the rest of the muddled thoughts in her head. She picked at the threadbare seam of the armchair as she searched for the words to explain it. She’d replaced Claire’s rickety old seat with something comfier, but not without some guilt. “Humans and their stories . . . it’s a complicated relationship.”
“An abusive relationship.” Probity hugged herself absently, as if she could ward off the thought. “It is a good thing you’re the librarian. I miss you terribly, but seeing you here . . .” She trailed off, suddenly looking small and earnest.
“This is where I’m supposed to be.” It was true. Was it possible for the truth to comfort and wound at once? Brevity rubbed her eyes. “This has turned into such a mess, sis.”
Probity’s distant look melted a little. “I was wondering if you were ever gonna call me that again.”
A clot—of emotion, of exhaustion, of longing, of worry—formed in Brevity’s throat that she couldn’t get words around, so she just smiled wearily. “Normally I’d have Claire to ask for advice, or Hero at the very least to suggest the worst possible option so I could rule it out. But he’s gone and—”
“The book is gone?” Probity interrupted.
“Off researching what we can about the ink from our end. He co-opted Rami, said he might get lost in the stacks for a few days, but . . .” Brevity waved her hand. “I suspect he’s found a loophole to sneak out again to other realms. Don’t tell Claire. Hero will come back; I think he’ll always come back now.”
“I won’t.” Probity had a troubled look. It seemed to take some effort to shake herself to focus again. “I mean, of course I wouldn’t tell that woman anything. Do you think she’ll try—”
Brevity was already shaking her head. “No. I think I . . . Gods, Probity, I hurt her. I was just so upset that she could do that, after all this time. After everything—” Brevity stopped herself. No good trying to explain Claire’s winding history with the unwritten books of the Library, not now. “There was something weird about her too. And instead of fixing it I messed it all up.”
“We can fix things,” Probity promised. Brevity shook her head.
“Humans are complicated. There’re these emotions and it’s . . . tricky.”
“So we don’t fix the humans,”
