The Library of the Unwritten (Hell's Library #1)

by A.J. Hackwith

“I, ah, always see you. How could I not see a beautiful girl?” He resisted cringing at the line, randomly

“I was going for a big, classic breakup fight, but that makeup kiss made most people uncomfortable enough that they wanted to look away anyway. Good idea.”

“And I have no intention of letting you hang around here, torturing that poor girl,” Claire said. “The difference is, I have a say in the matter. You do not.” “I’m not torturing her!”

“Yes.” The hero’s face softened. “You see it. She’s perfect. At first I just wanted to meet her, but now . . . we’ve spent days just talking. If I can just inspire her to—” “She’s your author. Inspiring her to write is not your job. You’ve already caused enough damage.”

A red-black ribbon of ink escaped from the rubber circle and twined its way around the hero’s wrist, leaving behind a worming knot of threads and shapes. The medallion pulsed on his forearm. Curiosity getting the better of him, Leto leaned closer. A tiny calligraphic font, almost too slender to read, shifted in chaotic patterns across the hero’s skin.

She was pale, as if she’d lost energy as well as blood. “Welcome to Special Collections.”

“Stamping?” Again, Brevity’s eyes bobbed to Claire and away before she answered. “A stamped book becomes part of the Library’s special collection. It means the librarian can IWL it.” “IWL?” “Interworld loan,” Brevity explained. “Loaned out to or called back from anywhere, basically. Books have a way of going where they’re needed, and Hell’s Library keeps unwritten art, but it isn’t the only library out there—I hear great things about Valhalla’s, actually. It keeps all the untold acts of heroism,” Brevity said. “Librarians can summon a stamped book back to Hell’s Library from anywhere, even if its calling card is destroyed. If it’s in Special Collections, it will always return to its originating Library.”

“Books don’t appear as normal people to their authors. Characters are made of something more to the one who created them. They’re made of our dreams, our scars, slivers stuck beneath our skin. You’re not meant to meet someone like that. She doesn’t know it yet, but she’s talking to the most alive person she’ll ever meet. The kind of alive you don’t find in real life. No one, no great love or her own flesh and blood, will ever come close. She’ll remember that glint in his eyes, the twist of his chin, a casual turn of phrase. She’ll hold it quietly in her mind like a fire. A fire that will consume everything. “If

“If she’s smart, she’ll try to forget. But that brand of memory is always going to be there, seared into a tender curve of her heart, a breath caught in her chest. It kills you eventually.”

“You surely didn’t think I got duty in the Unwritten Wing by random chance?” Claire’s voice was hollow. She glanced at Leto with a paper-thin smile. “You know how they say ‘Never meet your heroes’? For authors most of all, never meet your heroes. Ruins everything.”

“One word, one hint, one familiar face in a coffee shop. If I can inspire her to write and make us real . . . you should be freeing your entire library. Introducing books to their authors, not jailing them. If it gets them to write and gives worlds a chance to live . . .” He made a guttural sound in his throat. “Who are you to stop them? Or must every author fail so they can be just as miserable as you?”

but Claire’s expression faded from anger to concern. “Hero.” Her brows knit together as she watched the unwritten man, who was sweating profusely now. “Tell me what you’re . . . feeling.”

“Oh dear. The pages. I think she’s burning them.” And with that, the hero fainted onto the concrete. A stunned silence, then Brevity spoke.

We think stories are contained things, but they’re not. Ask the muses. Humans, stories, tragedies, and wishes—everything leaves ripples in the world. Nothing we do is not felt; that’s a comfort. Nothing we do is not felt; that’s a curse.

For Uriel, humans were cut flowers for a lover’s bouquet, nothing more.

Rami did not know this cartoonish “devil” that terrorized modern imagination, but he knew Lucifer. He was a selfish angel and likely an even more selfish demon.

Books and stories are the creations of imagination, and that power is just for humans. Take it from me. Gods can will a realm into being, and muses can try to edge things along, but only a mortal can imagine a different way for the story to go. How cool is that? Humans are freaking terrifying. I love it!

“Tearing out your own pages is one thing; they can be reattached. But his pages were destroyed. Anything that was on them is gone forever. Places, plot . . . or characters. You can do a lot with restoration, and boss is one of the best, but you can’t reinvent things out of whole cloth.”

“The term comes from the theater. Or at least, from days when theaters were more popular. When a theater closed for the night, a single light was left on, usually just a bulb on a stand at the center of the stage. The stage always stayed lit. A ghostlight. It had a practical purpose, of course—that way the first one to enter didn’t accidentally fall into the orchestra pit.”

“The theater ghosts, of course.” Claire smiled and eased to a more sensible stroll as they passed the first trickle of crowds lining up outside dockside restaurants and bars. “Theaters traditionally always closed for at least one day a week, leaving on the ghostlight, to appease the ghosts. To allow them one day on the stage to perform their acts. To live and love and hate and triumph on the stage like the living.”

“I’m . . . I’m not a demon?” Leto’s voice was suddenly hoarse. “I’m mortal.” “Well, technically no. You’re not mortal, not anymore. Bad term for it. Dead, eternal soul, and all. But you were human,

“You explained it well enough before. When you die, you get what your soul’s debt demands. Like what you need to do to atone for what you’ve done, or to just forgive yourself, to heal, or find justice. It varies. My soul decided I needed to spend a century or two—god, I hope I don’t reach past that—as the keeper of the Unwritten Library in Hell. Lucky me. Yours . . . Evidently you needed to be an amnesiac demon. Rather melodramatic, that.”

“Well, it’s a unique sentence for a soul—that’s for sure. Must have been a hard end. Not many people see themselves as literal devils.”

“And if you’re a demon of entropy, you’re the worst one I’ve seen, because you got torn up at the idea of shorting a taxi driver’s tips. And then Walter confirmed it when we set up transportation—only human souls need ghostlights. Even if he hadn’t, once we got up here, it was all the little things. Human things. Like the cute little blush when Brev kissed you.” “I did not!”

Keep the books from damage, Gregor. Repair those you can save. But beware the stories that find their freedom.

“Attacked,” Brevity insisted. “By a Watcher. An angel from before the world was made.” “Technically, a fallen angel. If I remember Enoch right, Ramiel was one of the human sympathizers.” Claire paused. “Though he seems distinctly less sympathetic now.”

“The Watcher’s scrap did not belong to the hero’s book. I need to run it past the Arcanist to be certain before I explain more than that.” Claire cast a glance toward the restorations room. “But there might be more than one book missing.”

The demons have been petitioning for borrowing rights again. The log says they waited a whole three centuries before trying again. This time they got a minor duke on their side.

They want anything that tastes of mortal mind. An unwritten book is nothing but pure potential, and a soul’s potential is power down here. Power, naturally, is all the creatures of Hell care about. They’d descend on the shelves like a swarm of locusts if we let them.

“Libraries traditionally housed a cabinet of curiosities; I suppose that is why the Arcane Wing exists here as well. It houses arcane artifacts—prophecies, spell books, monkey claws, and soul gems. That kind of nonsense. Things that gain power on Earth become . . . slippery. Slippery and dangerous. They tend to fall through the cracks of reality and end up here, where we can contain them. It’s the Arcanist’s job to do that, and fetch the dangerous stuff. Messy job, one I’m glad I don’t have. Books are much more straightforward.”

“Against everything. As long as there have been places like libraries—places attempting to preserve and curate—there have been forces attempting to acquire. The Library makes for a very juicy target for the demons of Hell, even though they’re supposedly our hosts.”

There are factions here in Hell that would love nothing more than to eat the books whole, for a momentary burst of power.

If the Arcane Wing and the Library didn’t work together to present a united front, the books would have been burned long ago.”

“You are working too hard, pup. You look thin.”

“Leto, meet Andras, Hell’s Arcanist and former Duke of the East Infernal Duchy. Andras, this is Leto, my . . . assistant, I suppose.”

“It has the markers of a piece that shouldn’t exist.” Andras’s eyes drifted back to the scrap. “The Codex Gigas. Have you heard of it?” “Codex Gigas. The . . . giant book?” “Apt translation, given the original book’s size, but it’s also known as ‘the Devil’s Bible.’”

“But there was a book created, and Lucifer claims ownership himself.” Claire frowned. “Lucifer . . . wrote a book? Impossible. Demons don’t create books.” “They don’t write books.” Andras held up a finger. His voice took on a teaching tone. “This wasn’t a story; it was an artifact.

“I’m not daft. I proposed the idea decades ago once I ran across the discrepancy. But I was ordered not to. Forbidden. A decree from our great ruler himself. And no further investigation into the book was condoned. Whatever it is, whatever it was, Lucifer didn’t trust anyone looking into it.”

“A fool librarian challenged Lucifer for dominion of the Library. Tried to claim independence and lost. She . . . Well, the books were preserved, but the entire Library was remade, sealed. It spurred a line of book burnings on Earth—if you’ve ever heard of the Library of Alexandria, she was born of that time. I suppose he wanted to punish her where it hurt. The muses were in an uproar. It was chaos until the Library had a proper librarian again. Tragic but beside the point, because we are not challenging anyone.”

“Before I knew him, he was a high duke in Hell’s court. Very highly respected, commanded legions, and was Lucifer’s right hand. Demon of Confessions, I think. He was ousted in a political coup more than a hundred years ago. Demons love nothing more than their political games; never stand between a demon and a rise to power.” “Isn’t that where you said the Library is now?”

“I was sent to you. And you’re the only one who’s even tried to tell me the truth. You . . . you’re the only assignment I have. Until that changes, I’m staying.” Leto tried to sound confident rather than pleading. He chewed on his bottom lip as he saw Claire’s normally brittle brown eyes soften. Sympathy, pity. It wasn’t what he wanted. He didn’t want to be protected, to shield himself from hurtful truths. Not again. It felt the opposite of being human. He wanted . . . “I want to help. Please.”

When you consider all the realms of the afterlife, there are aberrations. To a librarian, Heaven is a large aberration. It seems curious that one of the grandest, most belief-fueled realms of paradise does not possess a library of its own. In the minds of its believers, Heaven must be perfect. Absent nothing, regretting nothing, wanting nothing. It makes sense, then, that Heaven has no wing of our library. What is a story without want, without desire, without need?

A smile curdled Uriel’s expression, a strange and unnatural look. Rami had thought winning Uriel’s approval would be satisfying, but instead it felt startling, like a show of claws.

“She serves Hell. She is already damned. If the librarian seeks salvation, then Heaven’s justice will purify her.”

Of course there are other libraries. The Unwritten is just one wing, though one of the largest. There are wings of poetry, wings of songs, wings of dying words and visions. The libraries maintain a prickly kind of alliance, separated by realms. If one library falls, it could signal the end for them all. The Library stands together. The only exception to note is the Dust Wing, which houses all the works created and lost to time. But the less said about that dark hall, the better.

In the end, guilt and self-recrimination were the worst sins for a soul.

Her current position in Hell was entirely due to her own soul’s self-imposed judgment. She dealt daily with condemned souls and demons because her own soul didn’t believe she deserved better.

If the muses had their way, the Library would be empty, but that wasn’t the way creation worked. Sometimes inspiration was not enough. They would not take a closing well.

Brev is going to be librarian one day. A muse. First of her kind to run a wing of the Library, and she will deserve every bit of it. She’s clever, quick, and has more heart than I do. Maybe she’ll even be able to offer the unwritten that better life you seem to be obsessed with.”

women. One pored over a microscope at a far table, sleeves of a thick Victorian dress rolled up and stained with ink. A wartime housewife on the couch balanced a magazine on her knees as she showed off pages to a young boy. Near the fire, a fair-haired princess snuggled contentedly with a pigtailed girl in overalls. A captivating alien of no particular gender played a complex, vertical version of chess in one corner. Their entrance had gotten the room’s attention, and a dozen pairs of eyes roved curiously over Hero before Claire shooed them off. She’d never allowed herself to learn their names—Brevity had always been better at such things—but they all knew her.