The Shadow Court

by Jenn Stark

  “He’s dead,” she said summarily. As usual, Judgment of the Arcana Council looked like the warrior she was, clad in full leathers and heavy, scuffed boots, her dark skin heated from exertion, her long dark braid of thick hair lashed away from her face. With her high cheekbones, chiseled features, and flashing dark eyes, she’d command attention in any room, but her air of brutality would send gazes flinching away just as quickly.

  “Dead,” I echoed. “My fault or yours?”

  Her smile flickered ominously. “I may have helped it along a little bit, but you did a number on him. He didn’t die in vain, though. He knew more than he thought he did, in the end.”

  As I grimaced, trying not to imagine how that interrogation went down, Gamon peered around the room until she saw Simon’s face on the screen. “I sent you the information. Names, places, connections. Our guy wasn’t at the top of the food chain, but he paid attention. The Shadow Court will give up its secrets soon enough.”

  “Excellent,” Simon said, his glee making up for the fact that he was still bedridden. “We’ve also got a ton of information from Mercault, who’s thrown the entire House of Pentacles behind our efforts to search and destroy these guys. Now that he realizes who the Shadow Court is and what their game’s about, he’s pissed. Apparently, they’ve been disrupting his own supply chains for the past year, but he couldn’t figure out who was behind the problems he was having. And, I suspect, he feels kind of bad about throwing you under the bus, Sara.”

  I rolled my eyes, and Simon grinned. “Then there’s the Hamburg crime scene. We’ve got an entire pile of data and evidence we’ve recovered both at the drop site and the terminus points for their drug network. We got people, places, entire lives we can poke through.”

  I eyed him. “I thought Interpol was keeping this all under wraps.”

  “They are, technically speaking. But everywhere Brody goes, I go. And Brody’s done his level best to go everywhere we want to be since Armaeus scraped you up off the pavement.”

  Beside me, the Magician shifted, as if hearing his name spoken aloud was the only thing that could have stirred him from the mental labyrinth he’d currently lost himself in.

  “What of Jarvis Fuggeren?” Armaeus asked.

  Gamon shook her head. “Our guy had nothing on what he called the high court, which presumably Jarvis is part of. His orders came through people lower on the totem pole.” She grinned, and the look was feral, dangerous. “Those names he did give up, though. So we can start there.”

  “We’ve got eyes on Jarvis too,” Simon confirmed. “He’s not trying to hide, though he hasn’t hit our radar screens in more than a year. He’s still making money, hobnobbing with anyone with either the privilege or the coin to throw a party, and generally living large off his ancestor’s good business sense. Ordinarily, that would make me like him less as an evil overlord, but there’s the drug component with this job. Rich, entitled guys love nothing more than making their coin off the drug trade. It’s easy, they don’t get involved, and the money keeps pouring in. None of it gets traced to them, and there just aren’t a lot of decisions in this kind of business. It’s about as turnkey as you can possibly get, even with the psychic component. Especially with the psychic component, since Jarvis can sample all the newest products and then decide whether or not he wants to share and with whom. It’s a megalomaniac’s wet dream.”

  Nikki snorted as I shook my head.

  “Do you think they planned all this—drawing us out, showing us the drug trail, tricking me into the fight…a fight that I didn’t even win, not exactly?” I asked.

  “You won, Miss Wilde,” Armaeus countered, but I waved him off wearily.

  “Not really. We didn’t knock out the Shadow Court, we only cut off one of their drug routes. Someone took a potshot at our own people—people I put at risk—because they were five steps ahead of us the whole way through. I collared the assassin, but we don’t know if Fuggeren is a player in all this or just another convenient stooge, and you still don’t have all your memories.”

  Armaeus nodded with a wry smile. “Put another way, you succeeded in single-handedly defending the interests of the Council without betraying the alliances—positive or negative—of any of its current members, or putting its temporarily enfeebled leader at risk. You identified a cancerous technoceutical distribution network trafficking poisons so deadly that even members of its own blighted supply chain were panicking and leaking information to Interpol and to your own office at Justice Hall. You ensured that not only could law enforcement move forward with shutting down this illegal hub, but that the Council was able to get our hands on at least some of the product, which will allow us to test it, break it down into its component parts, identify how it might be used. And, if necessary, reverse engineer it.”

  “Ma-Singh nearly died, Armaeus,” I said, and it was my turn to stare at the far wall, caught in my own endless loop of self-judgment. “He was in the wrong place at the wrong time because of me.”

  “Yes,” Armaeus said simply, and something in his voice made me look his way. Armaeus was staring at me with such naked emotion on his face that I blinked, my breath suddenly stalling out. “You would stop a bullet for any one of us. Step in front of any train. Endure any fire, break any bone. You would give chase when there was no catching your quarry, and you would lead away pursuers when there was no way you could outrun them. You would do all these things without a second thought, Miss Wilde. I’ve met you again only a few short days ago, and I know it to be true. There is no other human I’ve encountered in my life more willing to sacrifice herself in a moment of need, or more negligent about the value of her own life. And when people like General Ma-Singh see that in you, shining forth like a beacon in the darkness of this current war against ourselves, they gladly step forward too. Some, like Ma-Singh, because they can. Some, like Emma Fearon, because they must.”

  His voice dropped off, and when he spoke again, his words wavered slightly. “Some like Detective Rooks and Miss Dawes here and even…even myself, because they see in you something that makes them believe in the strength, the hope, the possibility that lies within every Connected soul. That it’s worth taking the risk, fighting the fight, building the bridge. Because of you, Miss Wilde. That is the grace you give.”

  On the other side of the table, Nikki sniffled. “I mean, whatever. I don’t like you all that much, dollface.” Even Gamon made a slightly strangled noise deep in her throat, before stepping back through the doorway in the wall, and disappearing from sight.

  “But you don’t even know me anymore,” I whispered to Armaeus, not knowing what else to say.

  If anything, his manner only grew more intense. He leaned toward me, never mind that Nikki and Kreios were sitting not five feet away, never mind that Simon was still staring transfixed from his computer screen.

  “I don’t know you. I’ve only just met you. The key of Cassius D’Angelo revealed a great many things—but not that. Not you. But I know what I saw as you faced down a horde of pursuers who attacked you in the shipyard with a single-minded obsession to take you down. I know what I saw as you grappled with the assassin of the Shadow Court, facing him with equal courage whether you had the benefit of your magic or not. I saw you as the idea struck you of how you could defeat an enemy who had you dead to rights. I witnessed how you would not give up. And I watched you summon a god to your aid…a god who willingly responded.”

  I clutched the totem beneath the table. “I can explain that.”

  “My dear Miss Wilde,” Armaeus chuckled wryly, shaking his head. “Your days of having to explain yourself to me have long since passed. You have given me a gift far greater than I would have ever thought possible.”

  “Ah…I have?”

  His expression softened, but his gaze held me fast. “Down in the darkness and deception of Hell, caught in a trap you didn’t know had been sprung,” he murmured, and my breath froze in my throat. I knew what he was talking
about, but I couldn’t seem to summon the words to make him stop. “Lost on a faraway shore, you—loved me, Miss Wilde. You opened your heart and revealed a truth and a depth I had never before understood. A truth and a depth that changes everything. For the Council. For the Connected. For me.”

  I could do nothing but stare at him for a long second. “That wasn’t truth,” I managed, finally. “That never happened.”

  “It was truth,” Armaeus countered. “You can, you do, you are. It is, always and ever, your love.”

  My eyes flared wide. “I remember those words. Brother McCullough—”

  “Spoke the truth the angels most wanted you to hear, a truth I still couldn’t grasp. You are the key, Miss Wilde. The love you give and give and give from deep within yourself, this gift that never wavers, never fails…it is the source of your strength. Father Jerome understood that. Ma-Singh understands it. Everyone you’ve ever known understands it, except you. And, until now…me.”

  “Well, I still don’t understand it,” I managed, my brain seriously on the edge of shutting down.

  Armaeus’s expression turned infinitely gentle, his gaze never leaving mine. “You will. Perhaps it took me forgetting who you were to see the truth of who you are. Perhaps I’d never truly seen you in the way I always should have. There is so much still left for us to do, to understand, but now I wish…”

  He paused, his jaw tensing briefly. “I wish only that we might have the opportunity to get to know each other again—differently from before. Better, perhaps, in the end. I would like that, if you’d be willing.”

  I bit my lip, searching his gaze as I nodded, and Nikki hiccupped on a cough. Even Kreios may have sighed softly across the room.

  “I’d like that, too,” I whispered, trying to keep my voice steady.

  Armaeus’s smile was once again so familiar—and so different. Deeper, fuller, more earnest, and yet more vulnerable than I’d ever seen before. He leaned forward and lifted one hand, then the other, touching his long, elegant fingertips to either side of my face.

  “Then I would like to begin again with you, Miss Wilde,” he murmured, still searching my eyes. “For I…I will love you, ever more.”

  For a long, fraught moment, I stared back at him, unsure of everything he was asking of me, unsure of everything he was offering. This was the Magician of the Arcana Council, a man I’d known and lost and found again, a demigod who was more and less than what he’d been before, a being whose heart had beat lockstep with mine, whose arms had cradled me close, whose hands had healed me, body and soul. He was the same, he was different, he was the beginning and my end. And he was all I’d ever want, however I could get him, in this world or any other. I may be this key he spoke of, but he was mine as well.

  I nodded quickly, tears slipping from my eyes.

  “Sweet Mother Mary on a tricycle,” Nikki breathed.

  Then Armaeus tipped his head to mine, and began us all over again with a kiss.

  ~ ~ ~

  Thank you so much for reading THE SHADOW COURT! I sincerely hope you enjoyed the book. If so, I welcome any and all reviews on the book retail site of your choice!

  To keep up with the latest on Sara Wilde’s next adventure, sign up for my mailing list here. If you're feeling social, you can find me online at my website, or follow me on Twitter, Facebook and/or Instagram. I look forward to seeing you there!

  A Note From Jenn

  Though this book isn’t named after a particular card, it’s quite definitely a book written for The Moon. A card of mysteries uncovered and truths come to light, it’s one of the most intriguing cards in the deck! Read on for a full description!

  ALSO: Interested in learning more about the Tarot, upcoming book releases, and other bits of arcana and mayhem? Get Connected (heh) and sign up for my mailing list here.

  The Moon

  The Moon is one of the most mysterious cards in the deck, depicting a large, feminine-aspected orb in the sky shining down over two towers. A wolf and a dog come together (suggesting both the tamed and untamed side of nature), while a crayfish crawls out of the water (symbolizing thoughts or the subconscious becoming real). It’s a card that points to mysteries that have not yet come to light, and is considered a card of the occult as well as deep intuition, dreams and the unconscious. Although often, the Moon implies a malign aspect—deception, illusions, fear and anxiety—that’s mainly a warning for the querent to look deeper into the heart of a situation and not accept anything at face value. Don’t let fear create false realities that keep you from seeing your true path! Instead, let go of negative self-talk and doubt, and let your intuition guide you. If you draw the Moon, you may learn unexpected truths or be treated to a sudden revelation, and you should definitely pay close attention to your dreams, intuitions and messages during this very fertile time!

  Books by Jenn Stark

  Wilde Justice Series

  The Red King

  The Lost Queen

  The Hallowed Knight

  The Shadow Court

  Immortal Vegas Series

  Getting Wilde

  Wilde Card

  Born To Be Wilde

  Wicked And Wilde

  Aces Wilde

  Forever Wilde

  Wilde Child

  Call of the Wilde

  Running Wilde

  Wilde Fire

  One Wilde Night (prequel novella)

  Demon Enforcers Series

  Demon Unbound

  Demon Forsaken

  Demon Bewitched

  Demon Ensnared

  Acknowledgments

  THE SHADOW COURT was truly an emotional experience for me, as Sara was put through the ringer and lived to tell the tale. Thank you to all my readers for continuing to read my books, which allows me to write these stories for you. I remain truly grateful to Elizabeth Bemis for her beautiful work on my books and my site—especially my gorgeous series covers. My editorial team of Linda Ingmanson and Toni Lee continue their tireless efforts on my behalf as well. Any mistakes in the manuscript are most definitely my own. Thank you to Edeena Cross, Judi Soderberg and Sabra Harp for their insightful, careful beta reads, and to Kristine Krantz, who will one day be so sad when she can follow the bouncing ball on the very first draft. And, of course, thank you, Geoffrey, evermore. It’s been a Wilde ride.

  Sara moves pretty fast, and she's always up for company! To subscribe to my mailing list and receive sneak peeks, updates and special giveaways, sign up here. Thanks so much for reading!

  About Jenn Stark

  Jenn Stark is an award-winning author of paranormal romance and urban fantasy. She lives and writes in Ohio. . . and she definitely loves to write. In addition to her Immortal Vegas and Wilde Justice urban fantasy series and Demon Enforcers paranormal romance series, she is also author Jennifer McGowan, whose Maids of Honor series of Young Adult Elizabethan spy romances are published by Simon & Schuster, and author Jennifer Chance, whose Rule Breakers series of New Adult contemporary romances are published by Random House/LoveSwept and whose modern royals series, Gowns & Crowns, is now available.

  You can find her online, follow her on Twitter, and visit her on Facebook!

  Copyright © 2019 by Jenn Stark

  ISBN-13: 978-1-943768-54-7

  Cover design and formatting by Spark Creative Partners

  This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locations are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used fictitiously. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in encouraging piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase/Download only authorized editions.

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  Jenn Stark, The Shadow Court