Writing was a chemical dance between the ink and the surface. Cheap paper would suck the life out of an ink, leaving a flat, feathered line. The materials used in the Library were both infernal and divine, in that the paper was a smooth and faultless cream that embraced ink gently, letting it dry and sheen to perfect brilliance. Which was what made ice shiver up Claire’s spine when the ink slid across the page as if a plug had been pulled. Claire lifted the nib, trying to break the flow, but black lines writhed across the paper. Corkscrew shapes twisted, then lifted away from the sheet, creating tiny black ribbons in the air.
A gasp broke the silence, but Claire couldn’t spare a glance for Hero. She acted fast. Three decades in the Unwritten Wing taught one to take unruly words in hand before they spiraled out of control. She snagged one escaping serif with her nib, pinning it back to the page. She abused the tines of her pen, pressing until they began to separate, but it forked the ink in two. That weakened it, allowing her to carefully, so carefully, drag the squirming text back to the top of the page.
It was a chapter page. Claire knew the general shape of it from the rest of Hero’s book. A chapter heading. The ink didn’t fight her as she draped it into position, trying to coax it into taking shape. A thrill thumped once in her chest as the ink snagged on the page and began to form the graceful arch of a drop cap. A T. It squared off, then crested into another symbol, h.
“There was . . .” Hero’s voice creaked, as if he was afraid to say it. Claire looked up. He had his hands braced on either side of where he leaned on the table, concentration lining his face. “There was . . .” he said more certainly, and as he said it, Claire saw the ink snag and shape the words on the page. Hero bolted upright, hands in the air. “There was! That’s how it starts! Claire, I know how my story starts!”
The unrefined joy was like sunshine in Hero’s voice, no snarl, no sharp, cutting end of his humor. Just triumph. His smile was effervescent. He let out a whoop and spun around in place. “It’s working!”
A tangled kind of relief spooled out with Claire’s breath. “You mean, I am working,” she said, instead of the lingering worry she had. She couldn’t constrain her matching smile, however. “Now, focus, Hero. One sentence does not a book make.”
She brought her attention back to the page with a surge of confidence. She dragged the ink precisely over the words, and Hero was a kinetic celebration out of the corner of her eye, unable to contain his delight.
“There was a . . . Oh, do keep going, warden. We’re getting there! I knew it would work!”
He sounded giddy as a child. Claire bit down on her grin as she refreshed her nib in the inkwell and brought it back to the page. The a went down easily, and the ink even appeared to settle into the page, calming into a dry sheen that didn’t twitch and jerk out of alignment. A w appeared, then an h.
“There was a man who . . .” Hero’s voice faltered. “Who. Who are you?”
The flurry of activity out of the corner of her eye had stilled. Claire looked up. Hero stood by the table, one hand still raised in mid-celebration. A startled look of alarm was on his face, but it slowly drained as she watched, and all color was lost from his cheeks.
A breath caught in Claire’s throat. “Hero?”
Emotion melted off Hero’s face, smoothing even the small lines around his scarred cheek. His eyes were blank when they met hers. “Who are you? Who? No.” A tear blinked down his empty expression, watery and faintly smoke-colored. “Who?”
Ink was flowing in the corner of her sight. Her knuckles went white around her pen as Claire looked down. The ink had continued writing, line after line of neat manuscript text appearing, growing more jagged and irregular as it went. Claire clutched the pen to her chest, nowhere near the paper, but still the words kept repeating over and over: There was a man who who are you who are you who are you who who who who who.
It occupied every line on the page, and then the serifs of each letter turned jagged, as if spawning their own contributions, written at an angle. All repeating the same word, who who who. Ink began to sop the page, puddling in the work light.
Hero made a gagging sound. Black sputtered across his lips, as if he was spitting up blood. But it was so much worse than blood. The liquid was black and staining, spiderwebbing down his chin and across his skin.
Her heart roiled into her throat. Claire threw the pen away from her and grabbed the blotter, already loaded with a sheet. She slammed it down on the surface of Hero’s book, but when she lifted it, the blotter was dry, and black crept across the page like mold. It began to soak into subsequent pages.
“Who, who, who . . .” Hero’s voice was a gurgle between gasps for breath. Black consumed his neck, turning his clothes sodden with ink. His hands grasped at Claire’s shoulders until the infection reached his elbows and he yanked back. Hero shrank to his knees, holding a hand up to his face. One emerald eye melted to pine, then tar. The remaining eye teared up, and his gaze flicked to Claire for one flickering moment. “A choice, ward—”
Ink swarmed his eyes and his face went slack. Desperation clawed a whimper out of Claire’s throat. Careless of the ink, she ripped out the sodden page with her gloved hand. But it had spread to the next page, and the next. Parchment began to disintegrate, melting together with the ink.
And when Claire looked up,
