Brevity nodded slowly. “Maybe that’s where they wanted to be the whole time. With other dusted books.”
“To be with other ghosts . . . Rosia was the only one who could hear it. So it was a haunting,” Claire murmured to herself. Her toes crept over the edge of the basin and she suddenly looked very small.
“Claire?”
Hero knew the way that one blinked to keep poison out of one’s brain and tears out of one’s eyes. Claire’s shoulders swayed. “All those years, everything I did to them because I thought books were merely . . . like magic. Or memory.”
Hero felt locked in place. His own feelings were a strangling vine—to be spiteful, to be right, was at the tip of his tongue. She had been cruel, cruel to him and to individuals like him, and she’d been biased, and she’d been wrong, and saying so wouldn’t wipe away the wrongness of what she had done. He shouldn’t be asked to forgive her; he shouldn’t have to comfort her.
But he wanted to. The want to shore her up, wrap up the hurt, was so strong it ached, but Hero still couldn’t do it.
Rami brushed past his shoulder. Gratitude, and a feeling warmer than that, muted all Hero’s other thoughts as he watched the angel approach and silently sit next to Claire at the rim of the empty basin. Rami didn’t say anything. He never had to. Claire met his eyes, and her chin wavered before she made a cracking sound and buried her face in her hands. Her shoulders twitched and jerked in a painful kind of silence.
“Boss . . .” Brevity said softly, and that appeared to make the shuddering worse.
Claire didn’t cry. Claire didn’t cry, and Hero didn’t forgive. It was their natures, and natures were all they had left in the afterlife, but ferocious resentment burned a hole in Hero’s chest. His nature had been written in his book, and that was gone and unlikely to do him any good ever again. He didn’t know who he was now. But that meant he also didn’t have to know.
His toes scuffed over the floorboards as his feet finally decided to move. The small sounds echoed like a gunshot that made Claire’s shoulders flinch even as he dropped down to her other side. She didn’t lower her hands from her face. It was so easy to touch her when he was prodding, or holding her back. But this was comfort, and an entirely alien action between them. His shoulders wouldn’t unclench, wouldn’t lean in to lend that solid presence that Rami was capable of. His silence stewed instead of supported. This wasn’t him. Or perhaps it was. Did he have to decide that now too?
“Only you would set up such a difficult impasse. You and Hell,” Hero said to the empty curve of stone beneath his toes. Everything ached. “Either you have been the worst kind of demon, or I’m a soulless abomination without a book. Either you’re a monster, or I am.”
The breath Claire took was loud and jagged between her clenched fingers. Her hands fell to her lap by fractions. She didn’t lift her head. “I thought I knew, once. I thought I understood how things worked. I just . . .”
“It’s okay,” Hero said. He saw the way Rami’s dark eyes watched him over Claire’s head. Their angel, their shepherd of souls. What a sad flock they made for him. Hero dropped his gaze. “It’s okay. I’m well versed at being the monster. Comfortable, even.”
Claire snatched his hand. Her palm was still damp with hot tears. She gripped it and—hell, her strength must have returned to her, the way his knuckles stung in protest.
“No.” Claire’s voice had steadied. Her chin was locked against her chest, but her gaze was slanted sideways, fierce and searching. “You are not an abomination. You are not soulless. You are not a monster. I won’t tolerate it.”
The air had left his lungs at skin contact, and Hero’s face felt hot. It was unacceptable, so he made sure his grimace was especially dramatic. “Fine, fine. If I call you a monster, will you stop crushing my hand? I need it. For things and reasons.”
In her typical contrary manner, instead of letting go Claire gulped a surprised sound and yanked his arm into her lap. Hero fell against her shoulders and found he didn’t fight too hard when Claire locked her hands around his elbow. She was warm. Her hair smelled like smoky tea leaves. Her voice was small and soft near his ear. “I don’t know what happens now.”
“It seems obvious to me.” Rami’s voice was gravel, like earth, and rocks that you could hold on to. His arm shifted, bracing both of them so they didn’t fall over. “We’ll be monsters together.”
Hero’s laugh sounded like a bark to his ears, jagged and out of use. He shook his head and glanced across the well. Brevity had hunkered down in the curve of stone, drawn-looking and hesitant.
“What’s the matter with you?” Hero asked.
Brevity’s eyes were big and threatening yet more tears. “I wasn’t sure—I don’t know if—”
“Oh, get over here already,” Claire grumbled. She threw open the arm that wasn’t trapping Hero in place, catching Brevity as she stumbled over. She fell into the rest of them, and Hero caught a particularly bony elbow to the stomach.
Brevity let out a wet warble that was muffled by Claire’s hair. Hero couldn’t make out what she said, but Claire shook her head. Some warmth had returned to her brown skin, and her eyes sharpened as she comforted the muse sobbing into her chest. “We’ll be quite all right. Really, Brev, you’re dampening my blouse.”
The corner of Claire’s mouth quirked up when laughter interrupted the muse’s tears and then subsided into sniffles. It stayed soft as it caught Hero’s eye and she nodded. The way her eyes drifted back to the stone told him enough. She hadn’t known, still didn’t have the answers, but this—this they had.
They sat there for a time, tangled
