Learn about Loss (Ghosts of the Shadow Market #4)(7)

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.