Page 27 of The Library at Hellebore

“I know it’s not going to be me, at least,” said Minji primly. “We’ve got plans.”

“But I am. You all know it,” said Adam, attention veeringto Rowan. “This doesn’t have to be difficult. This can be a beautiful death for half of us.”

“Fuck you, man.” I said.

“Maybe later,” said Adam.

“I’m hungry,” keened Portia.

Right then, I found myself thinking: this was it. Soon, we’d be picking bits of one another from the wall. If violence broke loose, hell would come stampeding after. I looked over the gathered survivors, trying to assess who’d fall into what camp, who’d throw in with Rowan and who’d cozy up to one of the Devil’s own spawn. It was only a question of time. Though at least I could still buy that. Eoan, who’d said nothing throughout, shuddered as our eyes met.

“Stop,” said Gracelynn.

“We should just start with you,” Adam practically purred, swaggering up to Rowan, who was on his feet again, chest puffed impotently. “Get the ball rolling on that prophecy.”

“I saidstop!” cried out Gracelynn this time in theirvoiceand Adam, to his naked surprise, stopped.

His eyes widened infinitesimally, attention now wholly on Gracelynn. Adam was unaccustomed to challenge. Especially from someone so innocuous-looking and pastel. Gracelynn was the shortest of the three in that tableau, barely chest-height to Adam. Their dress was a confection of creamy fabric and lace, the panes of the skirt embroidered with occult symbols and, inexplicably, very round cats. (When I met them, it had been moons spangling their skirts, moons and soft-eyed lambs.) They barreled up to Adam, planting themselves between him and Rowan. To glare at him, they had to crane their head back and tip their chin up: they resembled a child who’d waded into an argument between adults.

But there was no apprehension in their demeanor, no doubt,nothing that could even be described as fearful, the meekness burned away by need. Gracelynn was either suicidally bold or just plain suicidal. Either way, they didn’t flinch where bigger men would have run.

“You don’t get to decide this.”

“We can decide together then,” said Adam, raising an arm. “All in favor, say—”

“No.”

“This really is about Kevin, ain’t it?” said Adam, smiling like a dog, his accent shifting fractionally, so the twang was a little longer than Gracelynn’s, the vowels thicker.Kevin,I remember thinking. He was using Kevin’s voice on their widow. “You couldn’t save your blackbird so you’re going to save this crow? Poor Gracelynn. Must have just about killed you when you watched your best beloved die. The way they screamed. I’m going to hear the sound every night for the rest of my damn life. What about you?”

“Quit it.” I stood up. There were certain lines you didn’t cross.

“I’d be careful on that high horse, Alessa,” said Adam now in Gracelynn’s breathy tones and their molasses-sweet accent, a move that had me nauseous. “Fall and something might stomp your spine to dust. Didn’t youjustmurder a certain girl?”

“Adam Kingsley, stop talking right now.”

If they lived long enough to wrinkle into a little old person, that voice of theirs would mature into a power that could speak the universe to a stop and a new start: theirs was a voice to end worlds, to begin new ones. Sometimes, I wonder if the Christians had been right. Maybe there really was a god who jump-started creation with the phrase,Let there be light,and the Bible’s only error was thinking anything happens inlinear chronology. Gracelynn wasn’tquitethere yet but they weren’t far. Adam rocked backward from the force of that command, his eyes rolling up to the whites. It took a good thirty seconds before he could speak again.

“That was good,” he said, mopping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Almost good enough to make methinkabout never saying a damn word again for the rest of my life. Do you ever wish you were more thanalmostgood enough?” The mask dropped enough that we could see the solipsistic contempt he held toward them, toward us, toward everything that wasn’t him. His grin wide and cruel, his eyes as expressive as plastic. “Do you ever wishyouwere good enough? Good enough to keep the one thing that ever loved you alive.”

“The Librarian,” I blurted, a new idea forming as the words left my mouth.

An expectant silence laid itself over the group.

“Let’s deal with the fucking Librarian before we start offing each other. Eight people have a better shot of doing that than four.”

To my surprise, Eoan came to bolster my ludicrous proposal. He passed each of us a skewer and Rowan and I handed ours immediately to Portia, who ate it all, branch and meat, cooing with animal pleasure; Minji turned hers over round and round and round, contemplating the meat; Ford ate his with a groaning pleasure. Adam turned his down, expression impish, so a fourth stick went to Portia.

“Alessa’s right,” said Eoan. “The Librarian’s probably still full and tired. If there was ever a time she could be defeated, it’s now.”

“Or we could just feed Rowan to the faculty,” persisted Adam.

“Half live,” said Ford unhelpfully. “If Rowan dies.”

“Sullivan would have taken down the Librarian himself,” said Gracelynn.

“Sullivan,” said Adam, “is fucking dead. If he was worth anything, he wouldn’t have just stood there as they devoured him.”

He hadn’t just stood there. Sullivan had fought. Not immediately, but he’d fought. He’d called his cicada-gods and they’d come loyally to his aid. But it hadn’t amounted to anything. I remember how he’d struggled even as he began deliquescing under all that concentrated stomach acid, how he had bobbed again and again to the surface of that mass, only to be dragged under. Each time Sullivan emerged, there was less of him: less meat, less organ. Until he was only growingly porous bone—and eyes, rolling in panicked circles—through which I could see spongy marrow and brain. It took him forever to die.

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