Jordan’s voice replayed in his mind. Belial, I need a favor.
Ryder knew that name. He’d heard it before during hushed conversation at his father’s house, and he’d seen it scribbled in Jordan’s grimoire. He knew the name like he knew any demon’s name—as something that never belonged in his mouth.
He swallowed hard and sat up. There was nothing, just emptiness and more emptiness. His energy reached out, only to come back cold and alone. He tested the name to himself, sounding it out again and again. Bel-i-al. Belial. Bel-ial.
“Belial,” he called. “I require…assistance? Fuck, okay, I’m new to this. I need help, I think.”
The darkness didn’t move or change. He looked left, right, to the floor which was as black as everywhere else, and to the ceiling, if there was a ceiling at all.
He sighed and pulled his knees to his chest, resting his chin atop them. He twirled the match in front of face and opened his mouth. Be there. He reached for his Fire. Be there. His lips rounded and he blew gently across the match.
To his surprise, it lit.
Ryder closed his eyes. Elation bloomed in him. His magic brought the Fire inside him to the surface. The tiny flame on the match stretched into his palms, wrapped over his body, and hovered around him. He kept it close, allowing his magic to lift it and pull it, coaxing the flames into a slender, snake-like form.
He felt the energy shift before he saw it. The same unruly, heavy energy from the reading with Liam manifested. It was more. It slid against him, blisteringly hot. His head spun, and he closed his eyes again, pulling his Fire closer. His magic buckled down, fierce and nervous, pulsing around him in tight bursts. Whatever energy had made an appearance before, it was the same and different. It hummed at Ryder, a deep, rough growl.
Anytime now, Jordan. Any-fucking-time.
When Ryder opened his eyes, a being knelt in front of him. All the breath in his lungs rushed out. His Fire moved faster, circling him again and again, a figure eight, circles, an infinity sign, a hexagon, circles again. He couldn’t move, and his heart pounded in his chest, body and mind stuck between terror and intrigue.
It shone gold, as if sunlight was trapped beneath its flesh—armor. It wasn’t skin Ryder was looking at, it was a suit of armor. Horns sprouted from the top of a helmet, white like daybreak. Eyes hid somewhere under scales of golden metal, warm and clear, human in a way Ryder hadn’t expected. Something sharp slid under Ryder’s chin, a curled index finger. More knuckles. Longer. Oh, Ryder thought. Its name surrounded him.
Ryder closed his eyes. “Be not afraid, right? That’s what you’re supposed to say.”
Belial hummed again, and it sounded like it might’ve been a laugh. Belial’s gloved finger under his chin was sharp and smooth. It fell away and was replaced by the tip of a sword.
Ryder’s fire whipped and thrashed.
The sword dug into his throat.
He heard it in his own mind, around him, above him.
An unusual one. The voice wasn’t his own. It was every flame that’d ever sparked, every lightning strike that hit the ground and volcano that erupted. A peculiarity.
Belial’s sword pierced Ryder’s throat.
You, Belial said, voice smooth and not, loud and not, silent and not, belong in my Order.
Ryder squeezed his eyes shut. He thought of Jordan and Ellen and Gerard, of his circle-mates, of Liam.
Belial’s sword retracted. A wide, gloved hand pressed against Ryder’s chest, and he felt the world shift.
Little Darkling.
“BACK UP!” JORDAN shouted.
Ryder’s eyes flung open. Life didn’t take its time—it filled him all at once. His lungs expanded. His blood rushed. His Fire, his Fire, leaped from him. Flames burst from between his fingers and surrounded him as he tried to catch his breath. Everything hurt. His legs were sore, his stomach lurched, his back ached. He tried to take a breath and gagged, choking on a puddle of stagnant blood.
The world came into view in two blinks. Everything was vivid and startling. The night sky looked down at him, filled with an abundance of stars and distant galaxies and the moon’s white smile. He recognized the trees curved over the cemetery, open in the middle in a perfect circle.
He turned and coughed, spitting mouthfuls of blood onto the cobblestone.
Steam filled his mouth. Black smoke mingled with the flames shielding him, a balance of Fire and necromancy. It was as if someone had reached inside him and turned the volume up, as if he’d been living his life half inside himself for twenty-one years. This is what it’s like. He curled his hand into a fist. Dark magic boiled in him, desperate to be used.
“Ryder! Calm down, you’re here, you’re back,” Jordan called.
He focused on the Fire until it died down, and realized how fast his breath was coming, shaky and loud.
Margo said, “Interesting.”
Vassa laughed, impressed, and clapped.
He smelled blood, his own and someone else’s. Once the flames around him were gone, Ryder saw Jordan standing across from him, wrapping a white bandage around her forearm. Gerard stood beside her, a confident smile perched on his lips.
Ryder gripped his throat and winced. The wound on his neck was stitched with black thread. He felt it fading, the thread turning to smoke as his flesh merged again, leaving his throat looking untouched. He coughed again and spit globs of blood on the ground.
Something was different. Everything was different.
“You still have your elemental magic,” Jordan said. The fresh sigil on her arm was covered with a white cloth, but Ryder could see the outline of it, familiar in a way he couldn’t place. “Which means the king of flames probably met with you in the afterlife, yeah?”
“Belial?” Ryder asked.
Ellen made a disapproving noise. Margo sighed.
“I had to do something,” Jordan hissed over her shoulder. Her gaze shifted back to Ryder. “What’s it feel like?”
“I want to tear something apart,” Ryder gritted.
“Good,” Gerard growled haughtily.
“How about you put something back together first?” Jordan nodded to the left. “Percy would probably like to join you in this life. Focus your energy, the newness inside you—” She tapped on her chest. “—the part that’s almost too heavy, and syphon it into Percy. His bones are broken. You’ll have to set them too.”
Ryder grimaced. “How…?”
Gerard cleared his throat. “It’ll come naturally, Ryder.”
Ryder could barely focus. The air vibrated around him. Time was disheveled. It was night, but it’d been day minutes ago. He’d died, and he was alive again. His heart thundered. There was the newness inside him, and there was something else, something ancient and powerful, an unknown that Ryder had felt before. It reconstructed itself inside him—the energy from the reading with Liam, from out in the woods, from the afterlife. Belial filled him like smoke.
Help me out here, Ryder thought.