Rami adjusted Claire into a bridal carry with significantly more care and respect. Black fingertips brushed against Ramiel’s coat and Hero flinched instinctively, but the ink didn’t jump or spread. Probity had been accurate in her clinical assessment, at least that far.
Probity came over to Hero’s side and fussed briefly over Brevity. The snarling defensive impulse was still jumping underneath Hero’s skin, so he was very glad when Ramiel checked Claire’s pulse and met his gaze with a silent nod.
Hero wasted no time rising to his feet with Brevity in his arms and executing a graceful turn that might have accidentally whacked Probity in the face with his elbow. The raven was still cussing up a storm over their heads and seemed to follow them down the aisle to the Arcane Wing doors.
Hero led the way, a little relieved to have Probity at his back in order to cool his strange rage. It felt like a silent agreement that they should get Claire and Brevity back to the Unwritten Wing, where they could rest in safety and as far away from the black pool as possible.
The pool wasn’t just black. It was a reservoir of unwritten ink, if Probity was right. The strange wonder of that warred with the gnawing fear of what had just happened—had almost happened. Hero navigated the hallways in a daze as he tried to make that align in his head. And it occurred to Hero that not once, throughout the entire ordeal, had Probity referred to Claire by her name.
* * *
* * *
NEWS TRAVELED FAST AMONG the damsels. It traveled even faster when related by Rosia, who had not drowned but instead burst into the damsel suite sobbing about ghosts. Half the Library—at least, half of the characters that were up and walking around—was assembled in the lobby when they arrived. The damsels took charge immediately, ensconcing Claire and Brevity in the suite itself and kicking Probity, Ramiel, and Hero out with the efficiency of hardened combat medics.
Damsels were really astonishingly, aggressively pushy, in Hero’s opinion.
Still, it allowed him a moment to reassemble himself. He accepted a cup of tea from a helpful damsel—young boy, monk’s robes, probably some failed author’s idea of a mystical sidekick, poor kid—and sank back in his chair. Brooding didn’t come naturally to him, but thankfully Probity had disappeared into the stacks and left him with only Rami for company, grand king of the brooders. They swam in the relative silence for the length of half a cup of tea.
It was a disappointment but not a surprise when Ramiel’s cup landed heavily on the table with a click. “We have a problem.” He met Hero’s gaze with earnest not-quite-silver eyes.
Hero was distantly aware that there was some technical difference between an angel and a Watcher, but whatever it was, it was lost on him. Ramiel might not have had the Heavenly refinement and light of angels in books, but there was no mistaking what he was. Being near Ramiel was like trying to stand next to the sun. Immortal creatures like angels had their own gravity, and Hero constantly felt the subtle tug around Ramiel. Hero’s usual nature was about as biddable as a cat with a migraine, and the feeling of an eternal slow draw irritated and got under his skin. This only served to make Hero even less prone to charity than usual.
“My word, is that the stunning conclusion you’ve come to?” Hero let his voice drip with mockery. It was easier to pick a target—any target—than to try to figure out what the existence of ink and Claire’s unknown condition meant to himself or the future of his book. He rolled the teacup in his palms. “Heaven truly lost a master strategist when you fell.”
“I was a soldier,” Ramiel said simply. He didn’t rise to the bait; he never did. He had an infuriating habit of looking at Hero, obviously finding him wanting, and gliding past as if he and he alone had some greater purpose. As if an insult from Hero was not even worth his concern.
Hero’s insults were worth a king’s ransom, damn it. It was perhaps the only value he could rely on these days.
Whatever Ramiel had been, he was an assistant now, just like Hero. That made them vaguely equals, he reminded himself. Allies, even. That moment with Rami backing him up with Probity had been nice. Had potential. Somewhere in the back of Hero’s mind was a distant plan starting to shuffle into view, but it veered too close to thinking about things he didn’t want to consider right now. He set it aside in favor of prodding the fallen angel.
“And I was a rebellion leader and a king, facts that did no one a flick of good when magic ink we don’t understand decided to start eating our Arcanist.” That sentence had lost steam somewhere in the middle, and rather than feeling like a vicious stab, it just left Hero with a queasy feeling of worry. It was an unnatural and unwelcome sensation. Another thing to blame Claire for, when she woke up.
If there was a sport he had trained for, it was guilt bearing. Rami heaved a sigh, proving he was already the champion. “You’re right, for once.” He leaned forward, intent. “So, what is it?”
Hero choked on his tea. “What is what?”
“The ink.” Rami’s brows created great trenches of concern above his silver eyes. It was unnerving when they focused entirely on you. “The muse seemed to think it was ink. Ink is the thing of books. So how does it work . . . ?”
Surely Hero must have the answers. What kind of book didn’t know what he was made of, after all? Perhaps it was like other things he knew without knowing: the shape of a story, the wrongness of his book without him, the shiver a book had when it was close to waking up a character. He thought about the ink and reached for that well of intuition that always spouted up, from nowhere, to catch him where he fell short.
Nothing caught this particular free fall. He knew nothing. He knew nothing at all. The idea that a story survived in the ink was no more or less ridiculous than anything else he’d suffered, but it stung somehow. He should know. What kind of character was he? Hero covered the dip in his stomach with a scoff and drained the last of his tea in one swig. “It’s a ridiculous question. Shall I ask you how your feathers work?”
Rami’s mood lightened to something approaching earnest interest. “Celestial dynamics is straightforward to understand, really. If you compare it to the aerodynamics of earth-born birds—”
“Please stop talking.” Hero buried his face in his hands. Everyone told him to do the same often enough: stop talking. This was a punishment, wasn’t it? Was he being punished? Taunted by an ignorant angelic jock and a pool of black liquid potential that should have shown him a reflection where he only saw a question mark? It was wicked and devious, even for Hell.
Hero considered it a minor miracle, then, when Brevity burst out of the gloom of the stacks like an ambitious sunrise, trailed by a curious gaggle of muses and—the knot in Hero’s chest eased a little—a drawn-looking Claire. Ink-stained, hunted-looking, but awake.
“Claire’s okay, I’m okay, et cetera and so on—” Brevity impatiently headed off their questions. “We got an idea. A really awful idea, but, well— Rami, Hero, on your feet.”