“Hello,” Claire just remembered to say before the pause became awkward. The gargoyle’s arm was gritty and reassuringly solid under her fingertips despite his non-euclidean angles. At least not everything had changed. The gargoyle gave an eldritch hum that made everyone wince, but it was a fond kind of abomination. Not everything had forgotten her.
Hero quickened his step to jump ahead and pull the doors open, keeping up lazy commentary that sounded more artificial than normal.
Claire stepped through the entry and stopped. The doors had merely been a prelude to change. The stacks remained in their same general configuration—branching canyons of tall shelves, spoking out from the lobby space in the middle. There was still the librarian’s desk, as large and anchored as ever. The desk was the eternal sun around which the celestial array of the Unwritten Wing turned. But everything felt shifted out of alignment. The woods were stained a cherry color, and the brass workings of Claire’s preference were gone. Instead, tiny little faerie lights raced up and down the vertical surfaces of the cavernous wing, lighting everything in a diffuse kind of cheer. Instead of brass rails keeping books from falling off their shelves like jailers, delicate wood carvings hemmed each row, almost like picket fences making a garden of the books rather than a confinement. The Unwritten Wing was still as large and echoing as ever, but Brevity’s influence on the Library left it feeling almost soft around the edges.
The emptiness in Claire seemed to have taken up residence in her chest. She had thought the complicated dull ache she felt couldn’t be dislodged, but when she focused back on the librarian’s desk, her heart did a painful lurch up her throat.
The chair behind the desk was occupied, back to the doors. Perched at the opposite end of the desk was a spritely figure, head bent in conversation. For a moment, it was a specter of the past to Claire. How many countless days had they spent in that arrangement? She worrying away at her busywork, Brevity keeping her company with a steady patter of reports and idle chatter intended to draw Claire into something approaching human conversation.
She blinked hard, twice, and returned to her senses. The figure perched at the end of the desk looked like a muse but was not Brevity. This muse had a pin-straight fall of lavender hair, not a teal explosion. Wore ruffles instead of neon straps and pockets. Hero cleared his throat, and the chair behind the desk turned, disgorging Brevity as she leapt to her feet at the sight of the new arrivals. “Claire! Oh, brilliant, you found them.”
This last comment was directed at Hero, who sketched a sardonic bow that Claire would have grumbled at him for. But this was not her Library; Hero was not her assistant. Instead, Claire bit her tongue and drafted a smile onto her face. “Brev.”
Brevity approached at her usual speed, and if she paused, hesitating on one foot long enough to flinch uncertainly before squeezing Claire in a hug, neither of them was willing to acknowledge it. It was a one-armed hug, the other stiff at her side. Claire tried not to miss it.
“Thank you for coming,” Brevity whispered, and this, at least, seemed heartfelt. Claire smiled around the lump in her throat, and Brevity nudged her back toward the librarian’s desk. “There are introductions to make. We have a guest! Probity is visiting the wing as an envoy from the Muses Corps,” Brevity said, introducing the lavender-haired woman at the desk.
“And as a sibling muse,” the other muse corrected with a fond tone. She looked like a porcelain shard. Her hair softened the effect, hanging around her pointed chin in sheets of silk. It contrasted with her too-smooth mint-tinged skin and silver eyes set above precise cheekbones. Muses were the couriers of inspiration and naturally attracted to color. She wore a layer cake of soft knits: white cashmere over blue lace and yellow tatter. The bubblegum pink ribbon in her hair was clasped with a tiny bird skull. The effect was as if a porcelain doll had escaped the tyranny of petticoats and discovered the pastel goth aesthetic as an act of rebellion. She had a detached kind of smile as she nodded to Claire, voice airy with politeness. “You must be the former librarian, then.”
Claire had the grace not to flinch. “I am the Arcanist of the Arcane Wing. I expect to be pleased to make your acquaintance.” She chose her words precisely, and it was petty, but Claire believed she could be afforded that much, all things considered.
“My mistake, Arcanist.” Probity’s head tilted as if she were about to add something more, but Brev interrupted with a cleared throat.
“And this is Hero. And Ramiel.”
Their guest muse turned. “Master Ramiel, shepherd of souls, it’s an honor.” Her face reshuffled into a formal kind of respect as she nodded to Rami and spared a little wave for Rosia, who was hiding half in Rami’s shadow. Her gaze didn’t linger until it got to Hero. Probity’s eyes widened. “Oh, this is the book? The book?”
“Yes?” Hero hesitated as Probity straightened attentively. “Or no. That depends what I’m accused of.”
Probity drew up close, peering into his face for apparent confirmation. She only came up to Hero’s chest, so she strained to her tiptoes. There was a little awe in her voice, and a limpid amount in her wide eyes. “You really are. Hero, the character that broke his own book. The book that’s forgotten itself.”
“Broken, that’s me. Charmed.” Hero cleared his throat, red in his cheeks. Evidently Brevity had not warned Probity that behind all the bluster, Hero was wary of strangers. He made to step back, but Probity clapped her hands abruptly around his face.
“Oh,” Probity whispered with reverence. “You’re amazing.”
Hero made a noise of stifled discomfort. Claire was about to intervene when Probity withdrew her hands with a blush. “We heard so much about you, after the burning. The book so damaged to reject its own character. Do you . . .” She stepped into his space again. “Do you have it on you? I’d love to see it.”
“A gentleman never tells. Quite forward, aren’t you?” Hero didn’t jump back, but it was a near thing. He stepped sideways, placing the desk between Probity and himself.
“Probity gets straight to the truth,” Brevity explained, and Claire thought there was a graphite streak of protectiveness in her light tone. “You get used to it.”
“Will I?” Only once Hero was certain that Probity would not pursue did he straighten his jacket. “I had no idea muses took such interest in lost causes.”
“Those are the causes I have the most interest in,” Probity said, smiling. “I would very much like to examine your book someday, if you would allow me. Nothing is truly lost. That’s just where the brand-new opportunities lie. Brevity taught me that.”
“I did? Oh, I did. Probity and I grew up together. Back”—Brevity made a purposefully vague gesture—“when we were younger.”
Muses did not age, so much as they came into their innate nature. Young muses, from what Claire understood, often clustered and grew relationships around sympathetic affinities. A muse of Brevity befriending a muse of Probity made a certain kind of sense. Brevity did not like to talk about her past as a muse, and Claire respected that. It didn’t keep her from eyeing Probity carefully. At least she’d drawn her attention away from Hero, who looked almost grateful for it. “The muses honor us with a visit.”