Brevity hesitated upon returning to her desk for her tools and the tiny vial of unwritten ink she’d hidden at the back of a drawer, shrouded beneath linen thread. The logbook lay open with heavy accusation. Brevity picked up the pen half a dozen times, precisely uncapping it and drifting the nib over a fresh page before putting it away again, untouched. A sense of duty found the seams inside her and tugged. As librarian, she should close the wing as a safety precaution, especially with Hero still gone. As Probity’s sister muse and co-conspirator, she should do as little to raise alarm as possible.
In the end, the wing stayed open. The books stayed quiet, the damsels stayed unaware, and Brevity stayed her hand, hovering over the handle of the great lobby doors. She left them half-open, creaking on the hinges of her own doubts. It wouldn’t matter. This wouldn’t take long.
The architecture of Hell was pasted together with lost things and tragedies, bits of buildings and spaces that have had the worst of existence visited upon them at one point or another. That meant a lot of Hell was an absolute drudge through muddy battlefields and concrete corridors that smelled like chemicals, but evil happened in beautiful places as well. The long room chosen for this experiment was splintered with cathedral windows. Through each piece of colored glass, Brevity could make out the light of a different scene. Sunlit squares fit for a hanging, shaded porticos to decide who was and was not human, cloistered confessionals that turned human love into sin. It made for a pretty kind of twilight in the hall, painting coins of color all over the stone floor. Brevity loved color; she might have enjoyed it under better circumstances.
As it was, she didn’t care for the way the multicolored light spilled rainbows like oil slicks off the vial of black ink in her hands. Probity had departed to fetch her muse co-conspirators, and Brevity was left to pace nervously. Electric ghosts of worry crept up her nerves, bunching her shoulders near her ears.
This was the right move. Or, rather, it was the necessary move. Claire had made this necessary, refusing to collaborate on the nature of the ink. It was Brevity’s responsibility as librarian to fix this. She thought Claire would want to fix it, but Probity had been the only one to suggest a solution. Brev felt a little guilty about blaming Claire, though. She’d been absent since the accident, but that would be expected. Claire would rather die than have anyone see her injured or suffering.
If this worked, they could figure out an equilibrium with the ink and stop the stain on Claire. In a way, Brevity needed to save Claire just as much as she needed to save the books.
Brevity had a lot to make up for.
The carving-crusted doors at the end of the hall creaked, and Probity came in, leading a pair of wide-eyed younger muses in her wake. They had matching heads of scarlet curls, one tanned pink and the other orange. Brevity squinted, trying to place them, but Probity warmly started through introductions. She had her elbow crooked around either muse’s arm familiarly. “Gaiety, Verve, you know of Brevity.”
“The exiled muse of Brevity,” one breathed, while the other held a hand to her mouth. “It’s an honor to meet you, ma’am.”
“Oh, really? I don’t . . .” Doubts, formerly niggling, swarmed up as the two younger muses stared at her with something approaching awe. Brevity struggled not to fidget. “You heard about me?”
“I took them under my wing . . . same way you did for me,” Probity said, eyes diverting and voice dropping off at the last part. “I try, at least.”
“Probity is the best,” the one with orange skin announced. Probity had called her Verve. She bounced on her toes eagerly. “She’s told us all about your rebellion. How we can save stories. Is that the ink?”
“It’s so beautiful,” the pink-skinned boy named Gaiety whispered.
“Oh . . . well, it is . . .” Doubt swamped Brevity out of nowhere.
Probity’s eyes sharpened, as if she could sense the waver in Brevity’s tone. She extracted herself from her sibling muses and put a hand on Brevity’s shoulder. “Gaiety and Verve are here to help us.”
“You volunteered, right? To test this ink?” Brevity didn’t precisely think of the question before she asked it, but she felt better as the two younger muses nodded with confusion. “And you understand we aren’t sure what will happen?”
“Of course they volunteered.” Probity’s hurt was evident.
“We’ll be the first muses to create our own stories.” The one named Verve was appropriately ambitious, with a glint in her eyes.
“We aren’t certain of that, actually.”
“We understand the risks. If we can create the stories ourselves, we won’t need to entrust them to humans who burn books,” Verve said. “It’s worth it.”
If Probity had been an enthusiastic activist for this cause, these two were true believers. It was tempting to be swept up in the wake of their certainty. “I’m not sure—”
“Anything is worth it for the sake of the stories,” Probity said. “We’re not weak human souls to be overwhelmed like the librarian. Muses are connected to the Library by nature. I’m certain we’ll be fine.”
“I am certain you’re certain,” Brevity said weakly. But it made sense, and again the thought of the black creeping up Claire’s arm strengthened Brevity’s resolve. “As long as we have precautions in place.”
“Of course. No one wants to protect the stories more than us. We’re well away from the books of the Library.” Probity tossed an expansive gesture around the silent hall before directing the red-haired muses to the center. “There and there. Are you ready to go? Let’s change history.”
“Will it hurt?” Gaiety fidgeted as he took his place. Evidently Brevity’s unease hadn’t
