Learn About Loss (Ghosts of the Shadow Market Book 4) Read online

  “It is horrible,” Sister Emilia said. “We should not see inside each other’s hearts like this!”

  They passed through that mirror and now came face-to-face with one that showed Sister Emilia’s mother, sitting before a window, holding a letter from her daughter. There was the most desolate look in her eyes, but then the mother in the reflection began, slowly, to compose a fire-message to her daughter. I am so very proud of you, my darling. I am so happy you have found your life’s work.

  I see nothing shameful in you, Brother Zachariah said in his tranquil voice. He held out his hand, and after a moment Sister Emilia looked away from the reflection of her mother writing all the things she had never said. She took the offered hand gratefully.

  “It is shameful to be vulnerable,” she admitted. “Or so I have always thought.”

  They passed through the mirror, and someone said, “And that is exactly what a weapon-maker and armorer would think. Don’t you agree?”

  They had found their way to the heart of the maze, and a demon was there with them—a handsome man in a well-cut suit that was the worst thing that Sister Emilia had ever seen.

  Belial, Brother Zachariah said.

  “Old friend!” Belial said. “I was so hoping it would be you they sent sniffing after me.”

  This was Sister Emilia’s first time encountering a Greater Demon. She held the sword she had forged herself in one hand, and Brother Zachariah’s warm hand in the other. If it had not been for those two things, she knew she would have turned and fled.

  “Is that human skin?” she asked, her voice wavering.

  Whatever the suit was made of, it had the glazed, slightly cracked appearance of poorly tanned leather. It had a pink, blistered look to it. And yes, she could now see that what she had thought was an odd flower poking out of the boutonnière was actually a mouth pursed in agony, a cartilaginous lump of nose sagging over it.

  Belial looked down at the stained cuff sticking out past the sleeve. He flicked a speck off. “You have an eye, my dear,” he said.

  “Whose skin is it?” Sister Emilia said. Her voice was steadier now, she found to her great relief. It was not so much that she wanted to know the answers, as that she had found quite early on in her training in the Iron Citadel that asking questions was a way to discipline your fear. Taking in new information meant you had something to focus on besides how terrifying your teachers or your environment was.

  “A tailor I employed,” Belial said. “He was a very bad tailor, you see, but in the end he has made a very good suit after all.” He gave her and Brother Zachariah the most charming smile. But in the mirrors all around them, his reflections gnashed their teeth and raged.

  Brother Zachariah gave every appearance of calm, but Sister Emilia could feel how tight his grip had grown. She said, “You’re friends with him?”

  We have met before, Brother Zachariah said. Silent Brothers do not choose the company they keep. Though I will confess I find yours more to my taste than his.

  “Hurtful!” said Belial, leering. “And, I fear, honest. And I only enjoy one of those things.”

  What is your business here? Brother Zachariah said.

  “No business at all,” Belial said. “This is purely fun. You see, they turned up some adamas in the caverns underneath Ruby Falls. A small vein of it in the limestone. Do you know that people come from all over the country to gawk at Ruby Falls? A subterranean waterfall! I haven’t seen it myself, but I hear it’s spectacular. I did play a few rounds of Tom Thumb golf though. And then gorged myself sick on the famous salt-water taffy. Had to eat the taffy seller afterwards to get the taste out of my mouth. I think there’s still a little stuck in my teeth. Chattanooga, Tennessee! The slogan should be Come for the Adamas, Stay for the Salt-water Taffy! They could paint it on barns.

  “Did you know there’s a whole city underneath the city of Chattanooga? They had such terrible floods over the last century that finally they built over the original buildings. The old buildings are still there, underground, hollowed out like rotten teeth. And sure, everything is on higher ground now, but the floods still come. It washes away all the limestone, and what happens eventually? The foundations will crumble, and everything will be washed away in a deluge. There’s a metaphor there somewhere, little Shadowhunters. You build and you struggle and you fight, but the darkness and the abyss will come one day in a great tide and sweep away everything that you love.”

  We didn’t have time to tour Chattanooga, Brother Zachariah said. We’re here for the adamas.

  “The adamas! Of course!” Belial said. “You people kept such a tight grasp on the stuff.”

  “You have it?” Sister Emilia said. “I thought it was death to demons, just the touch.”

  “Your ordinary sort will just explode, yes,” Belial said. “But I am a prince of Hell. Made of sterner stuff.”

  Greater Demons can handle adamas, Brother Zachariah said. Though my understanding is that it is agonizing to them.

  “To-may-to of agony, to-mah-to of ah-gony,” Belial said. His reflections in the various mirrors wept tears of blood. “Do you know what causes us pain? The one who made us has turned his face from us. We are not allowed before the throne. But adamas, that’s angelic stuff. When we touch it, the pain of our absence from the divine is indescribable. And yet, it’s the closest we ever get to being in its presence. So we touch adamas, and we feel the absence of our creator, and in that absence we feel the smallest spark of what we once were. Oh, it’s the most wonderful thing you can imagine, that pain.”

  Brother Zachariah said, “And God said, I shall not retain Belial within my heart.”

  A sly, wounded look came over Belial’s face. “Of course you, too, my dear Brother Zachariah, have been cut off from the ones you love. We understand each other.” And then he said something in a language that Sister Emilia did not recognize, almost spitting out the awful, hissing syllables.

  “What is he saying?” she said. She thought that the room seemed to be growing hotter. The mirrors were blazing brighter.

  He’s speaking Abyssal, Brother Zachariah said calmly. Nothing of any interest.

  “He’s doing something,” Sister Emilia hissed. “We have to stop him. Something is happening.”

  In all the mirrors, Belial was swelling up, the suit of skin bursting like the skin of a sausage. The mirror versions of Sister Emilia and Brother Zachariah were dwindling, shrinking and blackening as if scorched by the heat of Belial.

  Knock-knock, Brother Zachariah said.

  “What?” Sister Emilia said.

  He said again, Don’t pay any attention to Belial. He thrives on it. It’s not real. It’s illusions. Nothing more. Demons won’t kill those they owe a debt to. Knock-knock.

  “Who’s there?” she said.

  Spell.

  Sister Emilia’s throat was so dry she could barely speak at all. The pommel of her sword was blazingly hot, as if she had her hand in the heart of a forge. “Spell who?”

  If you insist, Brother Zachariah said. W-H-O.

  And when Sister Emilia understood the joke, it was so very ridiculous that she laughed in spite of herself. “That’s terrible!” she said.

  Brother Zachariah looked at her with his expressionless, sealed-off face. He said, You didn’t ask me if Silent Brothers had a good sense of humor.

  Belial had stopped speaking Abyssal. He looked incredibly disappointed in them both. “This is no fun,” he said.

  What did you do with the adamas? Brother Zachariah said.

  Belial reached down into the neck of his shirt and drew up a chain. Dangling on the end of it was an adamas half mask. Sister Emilia could see his skin go red and then grow raw and festering and yellow with pus where the mask touched him. And where he touched the mask, the metal flared up in coruscating ripples of turquoise, scarlet, viridian. But Belial’s expression of proud ind
ifference never changed. “I’ve been using it on behalf of your precious mundane folk,” he said. “It strengthens my power as I strengthen its. Some of them want to be people other than themselves, and so I give them the illusion of that. Strong enough that they can fool others. Other people want to see something that they want, or that they’ve lost, or that they can’t have, and I can do that too. There was a young man the other day—a boy, really—he was to be married. But he was afraid. He wanted to know the worst things that might happen to him and the girl he loved, so that he could prepare for them and go on bravely. I hear he wasn’t that brave after all.”

  “He put out his eyes,” Sister Emilia said. “And what about Billy Doyle?”

  “That one, I think, will have a remarkable life,” Belial said. “Or else end up in a lunatic asylum. Care to wager which?”

  There shouldn’t be a Shadow Market here, Brother Zachariah said.

  “There are many things that shouldn’t be that are,” Belial said. “And many things that aren’t that might still be if you only want them enough. I’ll admit, I hoped that the Shadow Market would provide better cover. Or at least a warning to me, when your kind showed up to spoil my fun. But you weren’t distracted at all.”

  Sister Emilia will take the adamas, Brother Zachariah said. And once you’ve given it to her, you will send the Market away because I ask it of you.

  “If I do so, will that cancel out the favor that I owe you?” Belial said.

  “He owes you a favor?” Sister Emilia said. She thought, No wonder they stitch up the Silent Brothers’ mouths. They have so many secrets.

  It will not, Brother Zachariah said to Belial. To Emilia, he said Yes, and that is why you need not be afraid of him. A demon cannot kill one it is indebted to.

  “I could kill her, though,” Belial said. He took a step toward Sister Emilia, and she raised her sword, determined to make her death count.

  But you won’t, Brother Zachariah said calmly.

  Belial raised an eyebrow. “I won’t? Why not?”

  Brother Zachariah said, Because you find her interesting. I certainly find her so.

  Belial was silent. Then he nodded. “Here.” He threw the mask at Sister Emilia, who let go of Brother Zachariah’s hand to catch it. It was lighter than she would have expected. “I imagine they won’t let you work it, though. Too worried I might have corrupted it in some way. And who is to say that I didn’t?”

  We’re done, Brother Zachariah said. Go from here and do not return.

  “Absolutely!” Belial said. “Only, about that favor. It pains me so to be in debt to you when I might be of some service. I wonder if there isn’t a thing that I could offer you. For example, the yin fen in your blood. Do the Silent Brothers still not know what the cure might be?”

  Brother Zachariah said nothing, but Sister Emilia could see how his knuckles grew white where his fist was clenched. At last he said, Go on.

  “I might know a cure,” Belial said. “Yes, I think I know a sure cure. You could be who you once were. You could be Jem again. Or.”

  Brother Zachariah said, Or?

  Belial’s long tongue flicked out, as if he was tasting the air and found it delicious. “Or I could tell you a thing you don’t know. There are Herondales, not the ones you know, but of the same bloodline as your parabatai. They are in great danger, their lives hang by a thread, and they are closer to us as we stand here than you can imagine. I can tell you something of them and set you on the path to find them if that is what you choose. But you must choose. To aid them or else to be who you once were. To once more be the one who left behind those who loved him best. The one they still yearn for. You could be him again if that is what you choose. Choose, Brother Zachariah.”

  Brother Zachariah hesitated for a long moment.

  In the mirrors around them, Emilia saw visions of what Belial was promising, of all that his cure would mean. The woman Brother Zachariah adored would not be alone. He would be with her, able to share her pain and to love her wholly once more. He could rush to the side of the friend he loved, see his friend’s blue eyes shine like stars on a midsummer night as he beheld Brother Zachariah transformed. They could clasp hands with no shadow of grief or pain upon them, just once. They had been waiting all their lives for that moment, and feared it would never come.

  In a hundred reflections, Brother Zachariah’s eyes flew open, blind and silver with agony. His face twisted as if he were being forced to endure the most terrible pain, or worse, forced to turn from the most perfect bliss.

  The real Brother Zachariah’s eyes stayed closed. His face remained serene.

  At last he said, The Carstairs owe a life debt to the Herondales. That is my choice.

  Belial said, “Then here is what I will tell you about these lost Herondales. There is power in their blood, and there is great danger too. They are in hiding from an enemy who is neither mortal nor demon. These pursuers are resourceful, and close on their heels, and they will kill them if they find them.”

  “But where are they?” Sister Emilia said.

  Belial said, “The debt is not that great, my dear. And now it is paid.”

  Sister Emilia looked at Brother Zachariah, who shook his head. Belial is what he is, he said. A fornicator, a miser, and a polluter of sanctuaries. A creator of illusions. If I had made the other choice, do you really think I would be better off?

  “How well we know each other!” Belial said. “We all play a role, and it would astonish you, I think, to know how helpful I am being. You think I have only offered you tricks and slights, but truly I have extended the hand of friendship. Or do you think that I can simply draw these Herondales out of a hat like so many rabbits? As for you, Sister Emilia, I owe you no debt, but would do you a good turn. Unlike our acquaintance here, you have chosen the path that you are set on.”

  “I have,” Sister Emilia said. All she had ever wanted was to make things. To shape seraph blades and be known as a master of the forge. Shadowhunters, it seemed to her, gloried in destruction. What she longed for was to be permitted to create.

  “I could make it so that you were the greatest adamas worker that Iron Citadel has ever seen. Your name would be spoken for generations.”

  In the mirrors, Sister Emilia saw the blades that she could make. She saw how they were used in battle, how the ones who wielded them thanked the one who had made them. They blessed the name of Sister Emilia, and acolytes came to study with her, and they, too, blessed her name.

  “No!” Sister Emilia said to her reflections. “I will be the greatest adamas worker that the Iron Citadel has ever seen, but it will not be because I accepted aid from you. It will be because of the work that I do with the aid of my sisters.”

  “Nuts!” Belial said. “I don’t even know why I bother.”

  Brother Zachariah said, Roland the Astonishing!

  And before Sister Emilia could ask him what he meant by that, he was running out of the maze. She could hear him knocking over mirror after mirror with his staff, in too much of a hurry to find his way out as they had found their way in. Or maybe he knew that all the magic was bound up to make the center hard to find, and that smashing things on the way out would work just fine.

  “A little slow on the draw, that one,” Belial said to Sister Emilia. “Anyhow, I ought to make tracks. See you around, girlie.”

  “Wait!” Sister Emilia said. “I have an offer to make you.”

  Because she could not stop thinking of what she had seen in Brother Zachariah’s mirrors. How much he longed to be with his parabatai and with the girl who must have been the warlock Tessa Gray.

  “Go on,” Belial said. “I’m listening.”

  “I know that the things you offer us aren’t real,” Sister Emilia said. “But perhaps the illusion of a thing that we can’t have is better than nothing at all. I want you to give Brother Zachariah a vision. A few hou
rs with the one he misses most.”

  “He loves the warlock girl,” Belial said. “I could give her to him.”

  “No!” Sister Emilia said. “Warlocks endure. I believe one day he will have his hours with Tessa Gray even if he does not dare to hope for it. But his parabatai, Will Herondale, is old and frail and drawing near the end of his life. I want you to give them both a span of time. Both of them in a time and place where they can be young and happy and together.”

  “And what will you give me in return?” Belial said.

  “If I had agreed to your previous offer,” Sister Emilia said, “I think that my name would have lived on in infamy. And even if I was one day celebrated for my work, still every blade that I made would have been tainted by the idea that you had had some part in my successes. Every victory would have been poisoned.”

  “You’re not as stupid as most Shadowhunters,” Belial said.

  “Oh, stop trying to flatter me!” Sister Emilia said. “You’re wearing a suit made of human skin. No one of any sense should care what you have to say. But you should care very much about what I say to you. And that is this. I promise you if you do not give Brother Zachariah and Will Herondale the thing that I am asking for them, my life’s work will be to forge a blade that is capable of killing you. And I will go on making blades until one day I accomplish my goal. And I warn you, I am not only talented, I am single-minded. Feel free to ask my mother if you don’t believe me.”

  Belial met her gaze. He blinked twice and then looked away. Sister Emilia could see, now, the way that he saw her reflected in the remaining mirrors, and she quite liked, for once, how she looked.

  “You are interesting,” he said. “As Brother Zachariah said. But perhaps you are also dangerous. You’re too small to make a suit. But a hat. You would make a fine Trilby. And perhaps a pair of spats. Why shouldn’t I kill you now?”

  Sister Emilia stuck her chin out. She said, “Because you are bored. You are curious whether or not I will be good at my work. And if my swords fail those who wield them, you will find it good entertainment.”