The Library of the Unwritten by A.J. Hackwith

Author:A.J. Hackwith [Hackwith, A. J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Fantasy, Action & Adventure, Contemporary, General
ISBN: 9781984806383
Google: LHuDDwAAQBAJ
Amazon: B07MQNDCXK
Goodreads: 41961994
Publisher: Ace
Published: 2019-10-01T06:00:00+00:00

24

BREVITY

I would never dishonor my elders, but there were times when I thought Fleur was a frivolous old woman. She held my leash, as I was her apprentice, and she made decisions that seemed so effortless—thoughtless—to me. I judged her for it. But I understand now. The leash gave me something to pull against. To argue. To form my own opinions, but never bear any of the risk of the choice. It’s easy to be brave on a leash.

Now the muses argue and whittle away at me. Demons salivate over books. The Arcanist questions my every judgment.

It’s hard to be brave alone.

Librarian Yoon Ji Han, 1799 CE

ALL WORKS ACCOUNTED FOR.

Brevity had run the inventory twice, just to be certain. Three times, to verify she was not hallucinating. It’d taken long enough that Aurora had retreated to the damsel suite to sleep. But the third inventory matched the first two. The blue ledger printed the results in neat, spidery ink that bloomed across the page: no oddities, and all unwritten books accounted for. There was Hero’s book, of course, which was listed tidily as “out on loan,” but all other books, paintings, and other uncreated art were secure in the Unwritten Wing.

Aurora had been insistent that there’d been someone in the stacks. Claire might have dismissed it as a figment of the damsel’s imagination, but Brevity knew imagination. It hadn’t been imagination that’d driven Aurora to speak, or the shelves to shiver. But it made no sense, someone creeping into the Library and not removing anything. The only ones that could enter the Library when it was closed were its current residents, books and artifacts, and those that took care of them.

Those that took care of them. The Arcane Wing’s pet Horrors, clawed hands drifting over shadowed gems. Brevity suppressed a shudder. She tried to think of any rationale around it, anything that would let her just shake the whole thing off and brew the herbal teas Claire hated and binge on the damsels’ baked goodies until the whole thing was settled.

It wasn’t what Claire would do. Claire would stare down a Horror and solve the whole mystery with the power of superior disdain. No, Brevity amended, perhaps she wouldn’t, because she’d never believe there was a mystery in the first place. Brevity wasn’t Claire, and never could be.

Brevity stood, head briefly turning toward the damsel suite. She spared a thought for Walter in his office. Someone would surely be willing to accompany her, give her a reason to be brave as she checked on Horrors. Brevity had always been better at being brave for others than for herself.

But the damsels couldn’t leave the Library. Walter had his own duties. And Claire had told Brevity to care for the wing.

Brevity stowed the ledger, abandoned her tea, and locked the doors behind her as she wound her way down to the Arcane Wing.

The monstrous doors of the Arcane Wing should have been barred and locked, since that was what Claire and Andras had agreed, which would give Brevity the nice excuse that, hey, at least she’d checked.

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