Probity leapt back, horror taking over her face. When her eyes met Brevity’s, they were wet, and she shook her head rapidly. “I didn’t—this isn’t possible. I didn’t mean—”
Brevity stepped back as Gaiety lunged forward, pale hands already swimming into translucent claws. It was as if all of the muse was being absorbed by the ink, turning to paper and ice.
“We need to fix this! There’s got to be a fix.” Probity sounded pleading now. She held up her hands, and the abundance of lace at her wrists gave away her tremors.
Brevity shook her head. “I think we can call this experiment a f—”
They had forgotten about Verve. A white shadow streaked past her head, launching itself at Probity. They went down in a tumble, but the ink-blotted muse was fast, and rabid with movement. She smashed Probity’s face into the floorboards and leapt toward the end of the hall before Brevity could even act.
Gaiety made a creaking, breathless kind of sound, as if protesting his sibling leaving him behind. Brevity was already running. “Stay with Gaiety and keep him calm. I’ll go after her!”
“Sis!” Probity called, but Brevity didn’t look back. She had to keep her eyes peeled on the retreating ghost, a flutter of pale skin in the gloom of the hallway.
It canted through the door of Walter’s office, and Brevity groaned as she heard the clatter of shattered glass. She burst through the archway just in time to see billowing red and purple smoke—which travel jar had been shattered was difficult to tell, but she would have so much apologizing to do when Walter got back—and, just beyond, the retreating shape of Verve disappearing through the main door. Brevity skirted the smoke, saying a silent apology to Walter, and ran after her. They were in familiar hallways now, and Brevity gained on the maddened muse, but as they vaulted the stairs up a level, Brevity’s heart stopped.
She knew this path, and knew exactly where the feral muse was going.
The Library.
Brevity struggled to catch up, but the muse was fleet on pale white feet. It shrieked a hunger-pang sound that made Brevity’s teeth hurt and hurtled itself down the hallway. It made it past the gargoyle, who just blinked sleepiness in several dimensions. Some guard dog he was, but then again Brevity supposed there was no reason to ever bar muses from an open library. Verve scrabbled at the doors, leaving deep scratches in the wood as she rushed into the lobby.
“Verve, stop!” Desperation gave Brevity a burst of speed. She hurtled past the entry and flung herself at Verve with just enough momentum to snag her by the ankle. The washed-out muse went down, hissing and snarling. Brevity clamped down and tried to drag her back, but Verve’s claws shredded at the rug as she went. She couldn’t allow her to reach the books; above all else, Brevity knew with entire certainty that she could not allow anything with that kind of hunger to reach the books.
Brevity dragged Verve back at the cost of the rug. The younger muse was almost completely white now. Washed out and almost translucent in the weird light of her eyes. The only color remaining was the faintest wash of pink still clinging to the tips of her long hair. Unlike Gaiety, she’d retained her facial features, but the bead of black ink swirled hazily from eye to eye, occasionally making a detour down to slash black across her lips. It was the only sign of life in the face that had been so hopeful and eager to help moments ago.
Brevity’s heart clenched but she didn’t let go. “Verve, you gotta snap out of it.”
She didn’t appear to hear. Verve lunged across the carpet again, hands straining toward the shelves of books as if she were a dying man reaching for a mirage. She croaked again, hungry and keening. It was all Brevity could do to sit on her back until Probity arrived.
Probity had managed to procure a strap from somewhere and had belted Gaiety’s thin arms to his sides. The faceless muse twisted and writhed, as if suffocating in his own skin. It hurt to watch. Brevity looked away to twist around and begin to roll the shredded rug around Verve’s sides. “What happened to them?”
Probity’s face was tear streaked, and she looked stricken. “It’s—it’s like the ink took them, all of them. Sucked them dry. Why would it— It shouldn’t have been able to do that.”
“Seems like that shit is doing lots of stuff it isn’t supposed to be able to do lately.” Brevity thought again of Claire and blanched at the thought of Claire without a face and leached of color. It almost seemed a blessing now that the ink had stained, giving rather than taking.
“This . . . we can fix this, though. Right?” Probity looked at her as if she had answers instead of an armful of rabid muse.
Verve bucked again beneath her, spitting her anger and forcing Brevity to pin her shoulders down. “It’s like they turned feral.”
“Not feral . . .” An idea brightened Probity’s reddened eyes. “Not feral, hungry. The ink drained them, and now they’re struggling to fill themselves back up. They’re hungry for what we’re all hungry for.”
“Human stories,” Brevity supplied. She looked toward the stacks worriedly. Liquid tendrils of color still washed out from the books, but they seemed to recoil from where Verve writhed on the floor, staying out of reach. The books knew danger as well as Brevity did. “But we don’t eat stories! Muses transport stories and inspiration to humans all the time. Look, she’s already gnawing on the rug.”
“Maybe it’s not about what a muse wants, but what the ink wants,” Probity mulled it over. “If they can get enough to satisfy what they’ve lost, then perhaps they can get control over the ink.”
“No part of this is in control! Probity, please, listen to me.” Brevity’s hold on Verve was slipping. Probity came
