The edge of the puddle had a questing tendril that stayed reaching toward Brevity even as the center turned. She chewed on her lip. “There was a woman who lived in a library, not because she was a great reader. Not because she was a great writer. Not because she was anything special at all, but because she’d lost the way of her own story.”
Claire didn’t stir, and with the melting slowing, she looked more like a statue wrought in ebony. She was drawing out the ink, not Claire. Rami shook his head, and Brevity grasped desperately for something to separate the two.
It wasn’t fair. Claire was the storyteller, not Brevity. The only story Brevity ever had, she stole. This was all on her shoulders, and they would all die here in the ink because Claire wouldn’t listen. “You’re so stubborn,” Brevity hissed through clenched teeth. A watercolor of frustration took on the bold strokes of anger and Brevity let it. “She was so stubborn, this woman in the library. She was selfish and mean and lashed out at anyone who tried to help her. She wielded a blade against books and words against everyone else. She was so wrapped up in her own self-pity, so certain of all that she’d lost, that she couldn’t see all she had gained. All of us that were right there, right there in front of her and hurting and confused and scared just as much as she was! We were right there!”
Brevity’s eyes were full of tears. Perhaps that’s why she couldn’t make sense of the way the ink moved over Claire’s skin now, rippling, shifting, almost drying into black scales. Half-fractured and curled in on herself as she was, Claire looked like a dragon’s egg ready to hatch—or rot away. Brevity held on to her anger; it felt solid in her chest. It was the only thing that kept her pinned here—wherever here was—besides Rami’s hand.
“She was selfish and cruel, and she acted like it was because she was smarter, stronger, than everyone else. But she wasn’t. She was just stupid. So stupid she couldn’t see the friends that surrounded her, the women who were not her enemies, prisoners, or rivals, but friends. She was so stupid it took the deaths of hundreds—hundreds of goddamn wonderful people—to realize it. It was your fault, Claire! Okay? I’ll finally say it. It was your fault, and none of this would have happened if you had just talked to me! And not—”
A shiver, starting somewhere distant and rolling right through Brevity’s chest, stole her breath. Black scales began to flake and peel. Beneath, just beneath, were the tiniest freckles of brown skin. Distantly, Brevity realized Rami was praying. It seemed fitting, trapped in her own confessional. “I blamed you, Claire. I said I didn’t but I did. And then when there might have been a way to fix it, you just—you just gave up. When it was no longer your job to care, about the books, about me, you just gave up.” The world spun, as if she’d lost touch with the ground again. Which was strange, because Brevity couldn’t even feel her toes. She was fairly certain it was her turn to melt. “I’m here to make you decide, right now, whether you are giving up on yourself or not. You’re not a story, Claire. You’re a human; you’re my human. And if you end, I’m ending with you.”
She couldn’t feel Rami’s hand. Everything was color. That’s what black was, wasn’t it? All color, all the potential color of the world together, minus light. Everything and nothing at once. There was no wall between the air in her lungs and the air without. Only the low, steady pulse of Rami’s prayerful words in some angelic tongue. The ink was ignoring her now, passing through her the way she herself passed away, in favor of drifting along the currents of Rami’s words. Black peeled away to reveal a brown cheek. Claire was under there, surviving and wonderfully human in every way Brev was not.
Brevity would never be human; she was a muse. So as the language of the spheres rolled through her head, she did what muses do. She let go of the allure of story, let inspiration and ink fall through her fingers, and fell to Earth.
36
HERO
Going mad is an excellent defense. Nothing is so discounted, dismissed, as an eccentric woman speaking the truth.
Librarian Fleur Michel, 1792 CE
“NO, NO, NO, NO . . .” A keening sound shook Hero out of his shock and pulled his gaze away from Rami. Probity rocked on the ground, holding Gaiety to her chest, but her attention was only on Brevity. She took sobbing breaths and straightened. “No. I can fix this. I won’t let her do this.” Probity abruptly lowered her unconscious younger muse to the ground. She started forward with intent in her wet eyes.
Hero drew in a breath and had Rami’s sword raised and leveled at Probity’s throat before he exhaled. The muse’s reddened eyes narrowed. “Get out of my way, book.”
“I don’t have one of those anymore.” Hero’s quiet admission startled a reaction out of Probity. Hero hardened his jaw and kept himself and the blade between Probity and the others. “I don’t think I get to be a story without a book. Then again, I haven’t been sure what I am for a while. I’ve tried and thought I was winging it, you know.” His smile was a snarl, but it wasn’t directed at Probity. “I was a loyal assistant for Brevity. I was a clever rival for Claire. I tried to be a questing hero for Rami. An angel that needs a hero—imagine that.”
Probity made an impatient noise and tried to brush past the blade. Hero twitched his wrist. It was a tiny movement, but just enough to flick the tip of the sword
