Learn about Loss (Ghosts of the Shadow Market #4)(5)

No, Jem said. That was a joke. And if he could have, he would have smiled. Sister Emilia was so very human that he found it was waking up some of the humanity he’d put aside so long ago. That, too, must have been why he was thinking of Will and Tessa and the person he’d been before. His heart would ache slightly less, he was sure, once they’d completed their mission and Sister Emilia and he had been dispatched back to the places where they belonged. She had some of the same spark that Will had had, back when he and Jem had chosen to be parabatai. Jem had been drawn to that fire in Will, and he thought that he and Sister Emilia could have been friends too, under other circumstances.

He was thinking this when a small boy tugged at his sleeve. “Are you part of the carnival?” the boy said. “Is that why you’re dressed like that? Is that why your face looks like that?”

Jem looked down at the boy and then at the runes on his arms to make sure that they hadn’t somehow rubbed off.

“You can see us?” Sister Emilia said to the boy.

“Course I can,” the boy said. “Nothing wrong with my eyes. Although I think there must have been something wrong with them before. Because now I see all sorts of things that I never used to see.”

How? Jem said, bending over to peer into the boy’s eyes. What’s your name? When did you start seeing things that you never used to see?

“My name’s Bill,” the boy said. “I’m eight. Why are your eyes closed like that? And how can you talk when your mouth isn’t open?”

“He’s a man of special talents,” said Sister Emilia. “You should taste his chicken pot pie. Where are your people, Bill?”

The boy said, “I live down in St. Elmo’s, and I came up here on the Incline Railroad with my mother and today I ate a whole bag of salt-water taffy and didn’t have to share a piece with anyone else.”

“Maybe the taffy had magical properties,” Sister Emilia said softly to Jem.

“My mother said not to wander off,” the boy said, “but I never pay any attention to her unless she’s het up like a kettle. I went through the Maze of Mirrors all by myself, and I got all the way to the middle where the fancy lady is, and she said as a prize I could ask her for anything I wanted.”

What did you ask her for? Jem said.

“I thought about asking for a battle with real knights and real horses and real swords, like in King Arthur, but the lady said if what I wanted was real adventures, I should ask to see the world as it really was, and so I did. And after that she put a mask on me, and now everything’s strange and also she wasn’t a lady at all. She was something that I didn’t want to be around anymore, and so I ran away. I’ve seen all kinds of strange people, but I haven’t seen my mother. Have you seen her? She’s little but she’s ferocious. She has red hair like me, and she’s got an awful temper when she’s worried.”

“I know all about that kind of mother,” Sister Emilia said. “She must be looking everywhere for you.”

Bill said, “I am a constant trial to her. Or so she says.”

Over there, Jem said. Is that her?

A small woman standing by a tent advertising MYSTERIES OF THE WORM DEMONSTRATED THRICE DAILY was looking over in their direction. “Bill Doyle!” she said, advancing. “You are in a heap of trouble, my little man!”

She had a carrying voice.

“I see my fate is upon me,” Bill said in grave tones. “You should flee before you become a casualty of battle.”

“Don’t worry for us, Bill,” Sister Emilia said. “Your mother can’t see us. And I wouldn’t mention us to her either. She’ll think you’re making it all up.”

“It appears I have gotten myself into a real predicament,” Bill said. “Fortunately I am as good at getting out of tight spots as I am at getting into them. I’ve had lots of practice. A pleasure to have met both of you.”

Then Mrs. Doyle was upon him. She seized her son’s arm and began to pull him back toward the exit of the carnival, scolding him as they went.

Jem and Sister Emilia turned to watch them go in silence.

Finally Sister Emilia said, “The Maze of Mirrors, then.”

And even if they hadn’t encountered young Bill Doyle, they would have known they’d found the place they were looking for when they came to the Maze of Mirrors at last. It was a pointy structure, painted all over in glossy forbidding black, fissures of red running through the black paint, the red paint looking so fresh and wet that the building appeared to be seeping blood. Through the entrance, mirrors and lights dazzled. THE TRUE WORLD AND THE FALSE said the sign. YOU SHALL KNOW EVEN AS YOU ARE KNOWN. THOSE WHO SEEK ME WILL FIND THEMSELVES.

The reek of demon malignance here was so strong that even Jem and Sister Emilia, wearing runes to keep from being overpowered by the stench, flinched.

Be careful, the voices in Jem’s head warned. This is no ordinary Eidolon demon.

Sister Emilia had drawn her sword.

Jem said, We should be careful. There may be dangers here that we are not prepared for.

Sister Emilia said, “I think we can be at least as brave as little Bill Doyle was, facing danger.”

He didn’t know he was dealing with a demon, Jem said.

“I meant his mother,” Sister Emilia said. “Come on.”