Excerpt from The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"No."

"What, then?"

Margaret looked shifty. "I shouldn't say."

David rubbed his temples. "Look, I'm not asking you to talk about your catalog, but . . . he's been gone a long time. We have to consider all possibilities. Just in general terms, what would happen if he had died inside the Library? Would he—"

"Don't be ridiculous," Carolyn said, not quite shouting. Her face was red. "Father can't be dead—not in the Library, and not anywhere bloody else!" The others muttered agreement. "He's . . . he's Father."

David's face clouded, but he let it go. "Margaret? What do you think?"

Margaret shrugged, not really interested. "Carolyn is probably right."

"Mmm." He didn't seem convinced. "Rachel? Where is Father?"

"We do not know," she said, spreading her hands out to indicate the silent ranks of ghost children arrayed behind her. "He is in no possible future that we can see."

"Alicia? What about the actual future? Is he there?"

"No." She ran her fingers through her dirty-blond hair, nervous. "I checked all the way to the heat death of normal space. Nothing."

"He's not in any futures and he's not dead. How is that possible?"

Alicia and Rachel looked at each other and shrugged. "It is indeed a riddle," Rachel said. "I cannot account for it."

"That's not much of an answer."

"Perhaps you ask the wrong questions."

"Do I?" David walked over to her, grinning dangerously, jaw muscles jumping. "Do I really?"

Rachel went pale. "I didn't mean—"

David let her grovel for a moment, then touched a finger to her lips. "Later." She sank to the ground, trembling visibly in the moonlight.

"Peter, you're meant to be good with all that abstract crap. Figures and so forth. What do you think?"

Peter hesitated. "There are aspects of Father's work that I was never allowed to see—"

"Father kept things from all of us. Answer my question."

"When he disappeared he was working on something called regression completeness," Peter said. "It's the notion that the universe is structured in such a way that no matter how many mysteries you solve, there is always a deeper mystery behind it. Father seemed very—"

"Oh, for fuck's sake. Do you know where Father is or don't you?"

"Not exactly, but if you follow that line of thinking, it might explain—"

"Never mind."

"But—"

"Stop talking. Carolyn, get with Peter later and translate whatever he says into something normal people can understand."

"Of course," she said.

"Michael, what about the Far Hill? Was there any sign there?"

The Far Hill was the heaven of the Forest God, where all the clever little beasts went when they died—something like that, at any rate. Carolyn hadn't been aware that it was real. For that matter, she hadn't been certain that the Forest God was real until just now.

"No. Not there." His speech was better now.

"And the Forest God? Is he—"

"The Forest God is sleeping. He has massed no armies against us. Among his pack there were the usual intrigues, but nothing that concerns us directly. I see no reason to think—"

"Think? You? That's almost funny." He turned away. "Emily, what about—"

"There's something else," Michael said. "We are to have a visitor."

David glared at him. "A visitor? Why didn't you tell me earlier?"

"You hit me in the mouth," Michael said. "You told me to be quiet."

David's jaw muscles jumped again. "Now I'm telling you to not be quiet," he said. "Who is coming?"

"Nobununga."

"What? Here?"

"He is concerned for Father's safety," Michael said. "He wishes to investigate."

Excerpted from The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins. Copyright © 2015 by Scott Hawkins. Excerpted by permission of Crown. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.