The Shadow Court

by Jenn Stark

  “I have no allegiance to this Council to which you have attached yourself, this web that has snared you as surely as any fly. It makes you weaker than you should be, Madame Wilde.” Mercault leaned closer. “Because no one needs to fear the Council anymore if they are careful, eh? And the world has become very, very careful of late. Too careful. I do not trust it, and neither should you.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “I know you’re just dying to tell me something, Mercault. Go ahead and spit it out. What do you know?” Mercault was being obnoxiously evasive, but I got the feeling he needed to be. Despite his posturing, he was afraid of something. For a man who’d made his bones as the head of the House of Pentacles, one of the largest and most profitable Connected syndicates working in the arcane black market, the fear didn’t sit well.

  “What do I know, what do I know… Everything and nothing, I am afraid.” He waved his drink and settled back in his seat. “First, show me the idol.”

  I reached into the neckline of my shirt and pulled out the long leather cord I’d used to suspend the flat gold totem, then drew the gold artifact over my head. I handed it to Mercault, but he gestured with his gin toward the small table between us, where a velvet-lined tray sat. Obligingly, I dropped the icon onto the tray.

  He leaned forward leisurely and took a closer look without touching it.

  “Guabancex, bringer of storms,” he mused, his voice, low and resonant. “Anything else?”

  I set down my own glass of scotch and pulled another small bag out of my pocket. I’d kept a few of the disks, shipping them to places where they were needed more than in either Mercault’s or my pockets, but I still had nearly a dozen to drop with a clink onto the tray. This time, Mercault didn’t hesitate. He picked up the bag and poured the disks into his palm, whistling with appreciation. “How much of these were there?”

  “Piles of them. And other totems too, mostly fertility goddess types. I didn’t see another one like your totem, though. And I didn’t have a lot of time to look around.”

  “Yes…” His gaze slid again to the storm goddess totem. It was a remarkably stylish piece executed flat in plate-thin gold, almost abstract, with the wide-eyed, wide-mouthed howling face surmounted by a crown of curls, and the sinuous, S-like curve of the goddess’s arms that bisected the head, giving the impression of constant, thrashing motion. The ancient Arawak tribe from whom the locals were descended believed that Guabancex ruled over the hurricanes that pummeled the coast of Central and South America, and their totem to her looked exactly like what they feared—an enraged face in the center of a swirling hurricane. “There were guardians?”

  “There were. Well-informed guardians. Which I hadn’t been expecting, frankly.”

  He flicked a glance to me. “Not too well informed, though, eh? They attacked you. You think they would have done that if they’d known what you were capable of? They would have revered you as a new goddess.”

  I grimaced, remembering my own concerns along those same lines. “Well, my plan for keeping a low profile didn’t exactly survive the experience. I had to get out using more than just my wits. I don’t think anyone noticed, but if they did…”

  He grunted. “If they did, I would already have heard about it, and we both would likely not be sitting here enjoying our drinks. The guide?”

  “He definitely won’t be telling anyone. I assume he was the one who tipped off the locals, but I don’t know why. I paid him well enough.”

  “There is no price that fear cannot outstrip, in the end,” Mercault said, the soul of reason. “But he is dead, you disappeared into the water, and any tales that come out of that godforsaken hole in the ground will get swallowed up as well. No one knows this acquisition has been made, and they won’t unless it appears for sale. There would be many hungry bidders for this prize, but I have other plans for it.”

  That made me sit up a little straighter. “What kind of plans? You acted like this was a prize of rarest beauty for you, a personal quest you’d longed to complete.”

  He winked. “Oh, it is, Madame Wilde. It is. But we will get to that. You have delivered—more than delivered with these extra treasures as well. You have earned my honesty, and if anyone should ask, I will have received great value for sharing the information I know. Unfortunately, I cannot share it unasked. But if you ask, I will happily tell you.”

  I squinted at him. “Um…say that again, but coherently this time?”

  He sighed. “Madame Wilde, in my position as head of the House of Pentacles, there is much that I see, much that I know. Much that I have been paid not to share with the Council. All to the good, I have no allegiances there. But now, now you are a member of the Council, and I have already betrayed you enough in this lifetime, while you have always tried to deal with me more fairly than I deserve. I have come to admire you, I am sad to say. And so I would offer you this information if you ask me for it. I simply cannot go running to you with it, eh? That would violate all that is true and good in this world.”

  “Oh-kay.” I considered the Frenchman. I’d met Mercault early in my artifact-hunting days, knowing him only as a fringe player of the arcane black market. He was Connected—possessing psychic skills—but only in the most minor of ways, and most of the artifacts he sought were those that were rumored to have psychic-enhancing abilities. From the beginning, he’d wanted more than anything to have greater psychic skills, in whatever flavor he could manage. Oddly enough, I hadn’t thought all that much about my own skills back then. I could read cards and I could find things. That’d been enough.

  Then I’d met the Magician of the Arcana Council, and everything had changed.

  The Magician, whose inconvenient memory lapse had occurred just as a growing level of disquiet was stirring throughout the Connected community—the threat of psychics going rogue, and of governments and multinational organizations starting to oppress the psychic community in force. Not a good time for the head of the Arcana Council to take a powder.

  And here was Mercault, acting as squirrelly as a meth head in a Sudafed factory. “How do I know what you’re so eager to tell me is the truth, or merely a fabrication to get you in with whoever it is you’re afraid of?” I challenged.

  Mercault made a face. “You do not trust me.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Excellent.” The grin that crept across his face was heartfelt. Despite his penchant for expensive clothes and overwrought homes, Mercault, at his core, was a thief, a rogue, and an outlaw. A grudging bond with an adversary would warm the cold rock of his heart far more than the handclasp of a dear friend. “But you see, you have bought my cooperation with this totem, which is worth far more than anyone else could pay. As a result, whatever information I give you is duly paid for. No one can fault me.”

  “And I can trust you to keep your mouth shut to anyone else?”

  He pointed again to the totem. “Bought and paid for.”

  I left that alone for the moment. Instead, I plunged in. “Okay. Is this information you have about, ah…the Magician?”

  Mercault’s eyes shot wide. “Then it’s true,” he murmured, and the hair on my arms stood straight up. Crap, crap, crap. Clearly, I’d guessed wrong, though it seemed like the Magician’s challenges weren’t completely unknown to Mercault.

  “I didn’t believe the rumors, had discounted them entirely given the threats the Council faces,” Mercault continued. He shifted his gaze to stare at some of the priceless art on the wall. “But you, here, now… No. That is not what I have to discuss with you. But I do know perhaps more than you think about your Magician, lore stored within my family for centuries. This information I will give you as well, bought and paid for with the extra treasure you brought from the cave. You will accept it?”

  “Of course.” Mercault’s mood was confusing me tonight, but if he was willing to dole out information, I was more than willing to accept it.

  He nodded, settling back in his chair. “Armaeus Bertrand ha
s served as the Magician of the Arcana Council for over six hundred years, constantly spouting his insistence that the world of magic should remain balanced, balanced, balanced, and that humans and ordinary Connecteds should fend for themselves in nearly all matters of magic.”

  I barely suppressed a smile. Though the Magician no longer remembered me, I’d worked with him now for years. Mercault’s family, a long line of scoundrels who preferred to operate on the dark side of the arcane black market, had doubtless interacted with him much longer than that. And he was French, much like the Magician himself. So it was reasonable to expect him to know Armaeus Bertrand very well.

  “What most people do not realize,” Mercault continued, “is that the Magician was not always quite so modulated in his approach to magic. According to my family history, which I have brought up to His Mightiness when the need serves me, Bertrand meddled with the best of them in the early centuries of his work on the Council.”

  “Really,” I said, genuinely surprised. “That doesn’t sound like him.”

  “It does not, not anymore,” Mercault agreed. “But the Magician came to his role in a very turbulent time and spent the first few hundred years amassing all the dark knowledge he could obtain. He was convinced that if he learned it all, he could then sort out what is suitable for mortals to claim and what should be destroyed.”

  “That…does sound more like him. How do you know all this? You guys meet for neighborhood barbecues once upon a time?”

  “You must understand, Madame Wilde, my family has been at the forefront of political and social power far longer than the Magician has been alive. We have endured our trials. We have survived our own revolution. We understood the value of secrets, particularly the secrets of the most arcane operators on the planet. Of which the Magician is merely one. Some would argue he is not even the strongest operator alive, at this late hour. And if the rumors are indeed true…”

  He took another drink of his gin, watching me over the rim. I knew what he was thinking—that I was stronger than the Magician. Since I’d begun working with Armaeus a few short years before, my ability to access greater magical powers had shocked everyone around me, except for, perhaps, Armaeus himself, who constantly thought I should reach further. Part of the reason I’d agreed to the role of Justice of the Arcana Council was to impose some limitations on my abilities, reining myself in as Mercault aptly pointed out, though that wasn’t really working out all that well so far.

  But setting aside the question of who was the grandest sorcerer of them all, a small part of my mind had begun worrying over my abilities and their effect on me. Though I’d never admit as much to Mercault, the incident in the caverns of French Guiana bothered me more than a little. I’d gotten out alive with my artifacts intact, exactly like the old days. But unlike the old days, I’d had to rely on my newfound psychic skills, my magical powers, and I could easily see the danger in that. How long before I grew to rely on them exclusively, losing the sharpness of focus that had kept me alive during my early years as an artifact hunter? While there was no denying the convenience of being able to crackle out of a dangerous situation, how soft had I gotten? And what would happen if I was ever pushed too hard?

  “Okay, what else do you have other than the Magician used to be an asshat?” I asked, refocusing. “That’s not exactly breaking news.”

  “Did you know he has a home here—in Paris? One he has not visited since, bah…” Mercault did the finger flick again. “The mid-1800s. A pity, that. It is a beautiful home. He maintains it, but it’s as if—poof!—it is gone from his thoughts. He has forgotten his memories before, like that, though not for a very long time. And it has always been by his choice, which is important, especially if the rumors are true, and it has happened again.”

  Alarm snaked through me. Exactly how many times had Armaeus banished his memories? And what sort of an effect would that have on a person over time? “Why is the question of his choice important?”

  “Well, that is obvious, no? The Magician only gets rid of that which he does not need.”

  I winced, my heart wrenching a little at the cold assessment. Was that true? Had Armaeus considered his memories of me expendable, a tool to be leveraged for the higher good? Surely not, and yet…he had mentioned before that I could eventually become a threat to him, to his power. What if by forgetting me, he was protecting himself? What if he really did know too much about me, and that knowledge was harming him in some way? Should I leave him to his ignorance?

  Should I leave him, period?

  Oblivious to my growing dismay, Mercault kept going. “By the same token, once the Magician has discarded a memory, it is gone. Or, that is what used to be the case. If he is actually looking for his memories, there is a reason for it, and that reason bears watching. What has he forgotten this time?”

  With Mercault’s abrupt question, my chagrin flashed over to irritation, which was fine by me. Irritation and I went way back. “Why don’t we focus on what you wanted to tell me about him?” I asked pointedly.

  “Very well.” Mercault shrugged, though his eyes glittered with interest. “There were two significant pockets of information, collections of spells, you could say, that the Magician wiped out of existence. Presumably, he did so by eliminating them from his memory, which effectively eliminated them from the memory of the world. Do not ask me how. The first was in Spain in 1478, but my family history is silent on the nature of the spells he employed. As of course it would be, since they have been forgotten. The fact that there is any information at all about the actions of the Magician is a miracle. But we are an old family and he was…an upstart. It chafed.”

  I raised my eyebrows. I had to hand it to Mercault, his intel was good. The Council had learned of this first breach of memory already, though the Magician could not yet pinpoint what he’d forgotten. “Fourteen seventy-eight,” I said. “Right around the time of the Spanish Inquisition.”

  “The very same,” Mercault agreed. “Arguably, the Magician was concerned that some of arcane lore might get discovered by the wrong group of anarchists and oppressors, and he took steps to make sure that did not happen without tacitly getting his hands dirty in the process.”

  I nodded in tacit agreement. That sounded exactly like something Armaeus would do, with his continual—and preferably anonymous—quest to ensure the balance of magic in the world.

  “The second incidence of his lost memory was less than a hundred years later, during Queen Elizabeth’s reign and likely occurring on English soil,” Mercault continued. “The year was 1571. Once again, there is no indication of what was forgotten, only that a disruption in the historical record had taken place.”

  I fought the thrill of excitement. I hadn’t known the date of the second occurrence, only that it had occurred. “And those were the only two times mentioned in your family’s history?”

  “The only two we knew about, yes.” Mercault nodded. “But both times, he fell quite ill, however, and that happened a third time, without explanation. In the 1850s…coincidentally, around the time he stopped visiting his house in Paris.”

  I frowned. This hadn’t been on my radar. “Ill in what way?”

  “In the 1850s he was bedridden and frail, beset with a wasting sickness from which there was a slow and broken return. There is likely no connection, as his recovery the first two times was far swifter. He was a changed man all three times, however, not necessarily for the better. Then again, not necessarily for the worse either.”

  Just like that, I was back to worrying. Armaeus appeared healthy enough, despite the hovering of his arcane medical team. Had I missed something important? “Meaning?”

  “Meaning that if he has charged you with finding his memories, you had best be careful when the pieces of the Magician are once more made whole,” Mercault said. “Keep in mind, the Magician you know has never been complete. If you reassemble all his parts, he will, perforce, be a changed man.”

  I made a
face. That sounded far more ominous than I wanted to think about. “I don’t suppose you have a cheat sheet on what parts to leave out?”

  “Sadly, I do not.” Mercault leaned forward. “But you must focus, Madame Wilde. I did not undergo this transaction with you tonight to speak only of the Magician.”

  “Your secret intel, right,” I said, but I remained far too distracted by what Mercault had told me. “Where is this home of the Magician here in Paris? The one he hasn’t been to?”

  Mercault rattled off the address, and I frowned, not recognizing it. “And it still stands?”

  “It still stands. But it is not what is most important here. Please, you must ask me directly for the intelligence I need to share. And stop being so selfless, or we will be here all damned night.”

  I blinked. “The information is about me?”

  Mercault sighed with genuine pleasure. “Yes, Madame Wilde. You. Thank you.” He didn’t say anything more, and I rolled my eyes.

  “And that intel would be…”

  “There are those who are following you even now,” he said quickly. “Seeking you out. Having clearly learned about my conversation with you, they journeyed to French Guiana but were too late. However, they picked up your trail again the moment you returned to Paris.”

  My brows lifted. “Because you told them I was coming here. You set me up.”

  He spread his hands, the soul of innocence. “Only for the most altruistic of reasons.”

  “Uh-huh.” Mercault never had only one reason for doing anything, but I was willing to let this play out. “So, they—whoever this is tracking me—knows I’m with you right now.”

  To my surprise, Mercault shook his head. “Happily, no. They are only as good as their eyes, and their eyes lost you once you began moving through the city. But they are making a net this night, Madame Wilde. One that is gradually narrowing, with you at its center. They have the resources to do so, and that is distressing to me as well.”