It wasn’t an empty hole; it was a pool.
“You been doing renovations?” Brevity asked, inserting a strained levity into her voice as she glanced over her shoulder. Claire had that stiff-shouldered stillness, frost on steel, that she got when she encountered something unknown. Brevity knew that look well. Claire hated nothing more than unknowns—they were messy. Personally, that was why unknowns were Brevity’s favorite. Improvisation was better than thinking through and giving time to doubt herself, any day.
“Obviously not.” Claire lowered her voice, slightly aghast. “She couldn’t be—down there—”
“Nah. I’m sure this is just a . . . whatchamacallit happenstance.” Brevity’s stomach churned on itself. Books couldn’t drown, could they? Not down here, surely. The Library would have told her if that happened. Oh gods, if she lost a book, the Unwritten Wing would reject her. She would let everyone down. Again. A terrifying tension threatened up her throat and Brevity tried to take slow breaths.
“What is it?” Hero asked with a hint of skepticism. “I didn’t think Hell flooded.”
“If it does, it surely isn’t water,” Rami said under his breath, and Hero perked up.
“Hellfire? Acid? Oversteeped tea?”
“It’s ink.” Probity straightened from her inspection, rubbing her fingers on her pants though everyone had sense enough not to touch it. “I’m certain.”
“Ink?” Brevity’s mind recoiled from the implications of that. There was no large amount of ink in the Arcane Wing, as far as she was aware. Ink was the property of books, of the Library. “That can’t be.”
“Rosia?” Rami breathed the possibility into the air and Brevity’s thoughts derailed. She’d nearly forgotten what had brought them here. Probity began to shake her head before Brevity’s panic could spin up, and she was immediately grateful.
“Not that fresh. It’s ink, though,” Probity insisted, before adding a little softly, “I know a story when I see it.”
“Well, that’s a hypothesis that is simple enough to test. Rami,” Claire said without removing her gaze from the wide well of black. “Please fetch me a dip pen and a spare sheet of vellum.”
For a big man, Ramiel moved with a cat’s-paw quiet. He returned a few moments later with the items Claire had requested, and a small stool. He was such a different breed of assistant compared to Hero. She knelt next to the black lake, carefully dipped the glass tip in the surface, then straightened.
Under the light, the liquid on the glass pen nib writhed with colors, like in an oil slick. But to Brevity’s eyes the colors slid and dribbled off the surface, like languid vapors. Blue and gray and weak green.
Probity exchanged a quick glance with Brevity and the slightest nod to confirm she saw it too. Colors in muse sight meant one thing: the markers of a human story. Brevity’s stomach lurched into gear. Somehow, the pool of liquid—ink, if Probity was correct—was related to the Library’s unwritten books. That alone didn’t scare her—there were a lot of mysteries the Library didn’t share—but the idea that Claire didn’t know was positively terrifying.
But then Claire, as usual, had taken the situation under her presumed authority. She spread the vellum sheet on the stool and bent her head over it. She touched the nib to the paper, and the ink bloomed black and innocuous at the contact.
There had been a moment, just before, when Brevity saw the disaster in the making. Assured the liquid was some kind of ink, Claire let down her guard. She shifted her three-fingered grip on the pen, dropping her thumb and forefinger nearer to the nib to take a proper writing position. The leading edge of her forefinger had a permanent shadow worn into the creases from years, decades, of ink stains. Normal wear and tear for anyone who worked with fountain pens.
The gesture was second nature to Claire. Brevity might not have even noticed if she hadn’t been watching the lazy waft of colors rising off the nib and the way they sharpened to invisible barbs as Claire’s fingers drew near.
“Boss—” Brevity warned. Then Claire’s finger ran against a smudge of ink on the pen grip and all hell broke loose.
The blot of ink leapt off the page, recoiling back up the feed of the nib and toward the grip. A short gasp escaped Claire and she dropped the dip pen to clatter across the hardwood. Rami rushed to secure it against contamination, but Brevity could have told him not to bother; the glass nib was dry. Because a tiny droplet of ink pooled on Claire’s out-held hand and wicked into the creases of her fingerprint. It propagated so fast, a deluge in a dry creek bed. Black raced in rivers and veins up her skin, sliding down her cuticle in a sheet and across her knuckle. More ink than could have possibly been in one drop, one smudge, or even the entire pen.
Claire stumbled backward, and Hero jumped in to keep her from tipping into the pool. Claire’s clean hand flew up, halting him. “Don’t touch me!” The ink veined up her knuckles and across her palm. Claire dropped to her knees and her wide-eyed gaze sought out Brevity.
For help.
Brevity was used to reading Claire’s glances. Understanding in a moment what her intended order or judgment was. But a look of helplessness was not in Claire’s repertoire. Brevity dashed forward, dropping to her knees and hesitating with her hands hovering over Claire. The unseen colors of the ink were lashing ahead of the march of black, as if anchoring and pulling it forward.
All of it happened in perhaps the half a breath since Claire had touched the ink. Panic constricted Brevity’s throat and she resisted the urge to grab Claire’s hand. “What do I do?”
“It’s cold,” Claire said with a clinical kind of horror. The skin of her palm turned black and oil-slicked. The ink swallowed her wrist in a seeping pool, increasing in speed. “It’s . . . loud.”
“Do something!” It appeared to be taking every ounce of restraint for Hero to stay out of range. Brevity glanced around and saw Rami had drawn his sword with a pained, stoic look. As if he was steeling himself to cleave Claire’s arm at the elbow. Once he built the resolve, Hero would not succeed in holding him back.
Brevity’s gaze landed on Probity. She was a pale shadow against the shelf, watching with wide, wondering eyes. She’d seen the color. She’d guessed it was ink. She was a muse and she was here, and Brevity refused to believe in coincidences. “Probity. Please, help me.”
Probity’s gaze snapped to hers, blank with confusion. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Claire’s arm turning black in lurching patches. The ink moved like an infection, like mold, like death. Brevity felt the air squeezing in her lungs with panicked gulps. “Please!”
A magic word succeeded in breaking the moment. Probity moved, swift and decisive in a froth of lace. She ducked under Hero’s arm and slid to the floor next to Brevity. She gripped Brevity’s wrist and hesitated with a pleading look. “This is going to hurt.”