Learn about Loss (Ghosts of the Shadow Market #4)(9)

“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 hours 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.”

Belial said, “True. I will.”

Emilia said, “Then our deal?”

“Done,” Belial said. And was gone, leaving Sister Emilia in a room walled in mirrors, holding an adamas mask in one hand and in her other a sword that was quite remarkable and yet in no way the equal of the blades that she would make one day.