by Jenn Stark
“Do I want to know?” I asked when the Magician didn’t at first turn to me.
“You do,” he said, but he spoke the words in my mind even as he continued his low chant. “You have done a great thing, Miss Wilde. We have done a great thing. The ramifications of which I’m still trying to sort through.”
“Okay,” I said aloud, shifting over to the right, where a low wooden bench sat, apparently waiting for an expectant audience. I was more than happy to oblige it. I settled on the bench as Armaeus lifted his hands and widened them slightly, the balloon of smoke and electricity expanding along with it.
“The Moon is not the sorcerer I expected,” he said. “She is weaker in some ways, not tethered to reality. But her command of her magic is extensive. She is pure nascent power. The kind of power that can break a soul as well as a mind. The kind of power that hearkens back to the dawn of the world, when the gods were first corralled.”
I thought about that. “That might explain why she decided to closet herself in Atlantis.”
The Magician nodded. “It also explains why she was so heavily sought out once a hint of her location was revealed.”
“Through Simon’s beacons,” I said.
“Yes. We weren’t the only ones who realized what he’d uncovered. I didn’t foresee that, in tracking the most powerful magic in the world, he might unwittingly clue our enemies into that which should have remained hidden.”
I straightened, a zip of anxiety darting down my spine. “What do you mean?”
“I mean we’ve come full circle. Great magic has been released with the event of the Moon coming out from behind the clouds, magic that opens up the eyes of the blind, whispers words into the ears of the deaf, awakens a magic heretofore unexpected.”
“Um…seriously?” I asked, suddenly alarmed. No wonder Death was so keyed up. “You mean by the Moon leaving Atlantis to come here, she’s tripped some kind of magical power trigger?”
He nodded. “She’s tripped several triggers. At least she has in me. In you as well, I suspect. Which is important, since I’ve tripped a few other triggers already.”
I blinked, glancing down at myself. I didn’t look any different, but as to how I felt… “Ah… Like what triggers, specifically?”
Armaeus drew in a deep satisfied breath. “For you? I don’t fully know. For me? It’s far easier. I’ve been restored, Miss Wilde. To the magician I was prior to ascending to the Council, and the Magician I became at my height of power. A reset button has been pressed, you might say.”
“Well…good. We need you at full strength if this war that Death spoke about is at our doorstep.” My mind turned again to the coming fight between the Shadow Court and the Council. First, we needed to secure the Moon, and then find the Star. Maybe if both of them added their strength to the Council instead of against it, we could finally rout the power behind the Shadow Court for good. But if either of them were in league against us…
“Ah yes, Death,” the Magician mused, drawing my attention again. “There’s much she still hides, despite the illumination of the Moon. The Moon can’t shed light on the In Between, or on the knowledge learned there, after all.”
“Yeah? Can she shed light on who the hell is behind all this? Like maybe who’s running the Shadow Court?” I asked, a little more sharply than I intended. “Because that would be super useful.”
The Magician turned to me, and something in his expression made me stiffen in surprise. There was a wonder to his features, as if he’d been holding off on looking at me, and now that he had, it was everything he’d hoped it might be, and more. A rush of warmth flowed through me, and I unaccountably wanted to cry.
“Um…Armaeus?”
“Miss Wilde,” he whispered, as if the words were a benediction. Then he swallowed, visibly trying to control himself, and continued. “To answer your question, I don’t know who the Star is. However, I don’t believe it will take long for her or him to make themselves known. The Moon is already creating ripples of power starting here and farther north, echoing through the desert, the canyons, the mountains. The Star will need to make its move quickly. When it does, everything may change. As farseeing as I am, a full 87.6% of outcomes during these next few weeks point to the eradication of the Council and the death of several of its members.”
“What? What are you talking about?” Death’s words came rushing back to me, but I shook my head. “No. No, nobody’s going to die, Armaeus. That’s not going to happen. The Council has to be in place to handle what’s to come. There has to be the balance.”
He eyed me with more than a little amusement, but there was a gentleness to his gaze that made me more worried, not less. “That sounds like something I should have said, not you. You’re evolving into your own definition of Justice—but your definition is not necessarily the right one for all people.”
“Well, I’m damn sure right about this,” I countered. “You’re not going to die. If you think you set that idea up with your little stunt in the airplane on our way back from New Jersey, I’m here to tell you that it’s not going to work.”
“There’s more to your response than what I’ve given you,” Armaeus murmured. “I’ve come to realize that too.” He flicked a hand, and a spray of cards flashed into the midst of the smoke, one of them, of course, catching my eye. Death.
“What is Death but transformation?” he asked, and he looked at me with a glance that should have warmed me to my toes but suddenly reminded me of the Armaeus I’d known and been thoroughly irritated by for way too many years. The Armaeus of old who might have loved me, did love me, but who nevertheless studied me like I was a bug all too often.
The Armaeus who’d known me through and through.
Who maybe…knew me again?
My breath caught in my throat. “You have your memories again?” I whispered. “Your memories of me?”
All at once, my heart thudded heavily to the side, my senses reeling as my brain struggled to catch up with my thundering emotions. I didn’t need Armaeus to confirm my question. I knew—I knew. A dam of grief, fear, doubt, hope suddenly broke into pieces within me, and I shuddered, not knowing whether I should shout or cry or burst into hysterical laughter. I had never realized how tight the grip was I’d held on myself until I suddenly could—let it go.
Let it all go.
Would that—could it ever be possible? When the torrent subsided, could I…could we?
My mind and heart screamed together like coeds at a slumber party, and I felt the sting of tears desperate to sluice down my face, the need for my entire body to collapse—and yet I didn’t speak, I barely even breathed, but something of my internal war must have betrayed itself, because Armaeus closed his eyes as if the moment was too much for him to face and nodded. “My memories of you, yes. And, too, your memories of us. Even those you once hoped I’d never know.”
Opening his eyes again, he widened the distance between his palms, and the cloud of smoke grew bigger, the swirling mist settling on two figures that turned into a full-fledged scene—the Magician and me standing against a villa built along the side of a mountain, overlooking a blue-green ocean.
My heart jerked again, my own eyes flying wide. “Armaeus?”
“Sara.” He moved toward me, and I stood in the same movement, the two of us meeting as the illusion-balloon expanded, swirling around us in a rush of cards and smoke, and then suddenly, a light, playful breeze against a sun-drenched clear blue sky. We stood on the terrace I’d watched him build brick by brick, the home we’d lived a lifetime in while I’d been in Hell, trapped in an illusion orchestrated by Sariah that had been the height of cruelty when Armaeus had died in my arms at the end of his long life, before he’d disappeared and Sariah had revealed the trick for what it was. Only now, Armaeus stood before me, his golden eyes soft with emotion, his hands clasping mine to his heart.
“All the wounds you’ve suffered because of me, and this one I didn’t even know,” he murmured. “I don’t deserve your
love, Miss Wilde. You don’t deserve the path your connection with me takes you down, over and over again. But for as long as you will have me, I am yours. You will never pass a moment without knowing I’m with you, body and soul, in this plane and in all others.”
I tried to speak, but I couldn’t get the words past my throat the first time. “This better not be some metaphysical bullshit,” I finally said, my teeth chattering. “I don’t want you in my mind or in my heart, Armaeus. I want you living, breathing, and fighting beside me. It’s nonnegotiable. I’m the fucking Justice of the Arcana Council.”
“You are that,” he agreed, his words as gentle as the sun on the shimmering sea. “And I am yours.”
I still didn’t believe him, not completely, but a second later, I didn’t care. He dropped his lips to mine, brushing a kiss against my mouth, igniting all the memories we’d shared, memories he could remember now too. From the very first time he’d contacted me for my services in Rio to our disastrous early attempts at understanding the magic between us, to our rush and tumble flirtation that had quickly caught fire, and everything that came after. He was here. He was back with me, and when I reached out for him, I realized with surprise that wasn’t the only thing that had changed.
“Armaeus, the network of energy within you is different. You’re different.”
“I am different,” he agreed. “The return of the Moon is triggering all sorts of changes. Not every person is willing to make the leap naturally. Some need a little more help—but serious changes are stirring within the warp and weft of the world. And within any of the Connecteds who have eyes to see.”
I leaned back from him, studying him narrowly. “The guy in the lobby. You sent him?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t have to send him, but I sensed your work with him. Your outreach despite yourself. The balance you seek becomes ever more precarious, but I no longer have to worry about that. I only have to worry about you.”
He pulled me into his arms and, turning, laid me down on a wide teak chaise that overflowed with cushions. A chaise that hadn’t been there a second before.
“Cheater,” I murmured. But I couldn’t deny how good it felt to have his arms around me, to feel his strength alongside mine. The grip I had on my emotions fractured further, and I sank against him, glorying in the simple ability to let go…with perhaps the only man on this world or any other I could. The only man who could be safe with me—and who I could give everything to, body and soul, without fear of it being too much. This was Armaeus, the Magician, the man. This was Armaeus…mine.
“Merely decorating,” Armaeus countered, though his voice fractured a bit, and I knew he was following my thoughts, my emotions, as keenly as I was following his. Before I could say anything else, the world shifted around us, the fabric of reality disintegrating as if it were returning to pure magic and possibility, and in this world, in the heart of his magic, it was.
A moment later, we were both undressed, and Armaeus bent over me, his fingertips igniting whirls of sensation as he traced the curve of my breast, my waist, my hips, his eyes devouring every inch of me, as if he’d never seen me before.
“It is different, knowing everything again, knowing what you and I lived in this place,” Armaeus whispered. “I missed the gift of a lifetime with you. A lifetime of us together. What wonders you created in your own mind for us to share! Far beyond whatever spells I could have woven, beyond the dreams I would have dreamed for us. A gift, a blessing, and one I never thought I would deserve.”
There in the shadow of a villa he’d never built, on stones he’d never set into the hillside, I no longer totally understood what was real, what was imagined. Armaeus and I hadn’t spent this lifetime together, had we? If I could remember it and he could remember it, did that mean it had actually happened? What was life anyway but a shared experience on a given plane of existence? Who were we to determine which planes mattered more than others?
“I could make you forget the rest,” Armaeus whispered, and I knew what he meant. The hideous moment when I watched him grow old and die in my arms, a sight I didn’t think I could ever unsee.
To my surprise, though, I didn’t want to unsee it. It made what was happening now all the more impossibly precious.
“No,” I murmured back, drawing him close, feeling his warmth surround me as he held me tight, real and vital, present and true. “Let’s just make new memories.”
29
I slept like the dead.
Armaeus had to have swept us out of time for a period, because when my phone pinged again, waking up was like coming out of a deep fog. We were no longer in an anonymous Mediterranean retreat perched on the side of a mountain, but in Armaeus’s expensive bed in Prime Luxe. Not a bad trade-up, I decided as I snuggled down deeper into the sheets.
Then my phone pinged again. I opened one eye malevolently, glaring at the nightstand. “What time is it?”
Armaeus stirred. “It’s going on midnight,” he murmured.
I groaned. No good messages came in after midnight. They were either bad ideas waiting to happen, or bad ideas that had already played out. I rolled toward him, wanting to shut out either possibility for a few seconds more. “Do you already know what it’s about?” I asked.
“It is almost certainly related to the influx of new energy that’s flooding the Flamingo,” Armaeus said, sounding profoundly unconcerned. I jerked upright, rolling away from him, and swiped my phone on.
“What kind of new energy? Nikki’s there, and so is Nigel, or they were a few hours ago. Are they getting targeted? What’s going on?” As I asked all these completely reasonable questions, I checked my messages. Nikki’s was the most recent one.
Strangers at the Flamingo, dollface. Stranger than usual. Thought you should know.
“Well, she doesn’t seem all that worried,” I allowed.
“She wouldn’t be concerned. Nikki has never met a stranger that stayed that way for long.”
Then he sat up as well, stretching luxuriously, my eye greedily following the line of his chest and abs as the sheets fell away from his body. He truly was a beautiful man. Demigod. Whatever.
“Speaking of that, so you’re shipshape right?” I asked. “With the Moon revealing herself, I get that you have your memories back, but you didn’t lose anything in the transfer, did you?”
He eyed me with affection, but he didn’t pull his usual inscrutability act. “I did not,” he said frankly. “The release of the Moon has made that which is hidden clear to those from whom it was being obscured. Those who are already seeing clearly might have some issues, as their vision is obscured or colored with moonlit fantasy, but that’s never been much of a concern for me.”
“Moonlit fantasy,” I echoed. “Deliberate or delusional?”
“Delusion is often in the mind of the observer, not necessarily the beholder,” Armaeus said. “What I may believe is a foolish assumption on your part, you may subscribe to with such force that it overrides any rational truth. The time for great clarity is coming, but before that’s possible, all potential paths will seem viable to those who long for them.”
I blew out a long breath. It had been so nice, that scrutability, while it had lasted.
“So you’re saying we’re about to have some epic cases of the grass is always greener?” I asked, immediately seeing the problem with that. The lines of power were changing in the Arcana Council, and with this group, more was always better.
Armaeus nodded. “When anything seems possible, that which is practical loses some of its appeal,” he said. “Something to watch out for.”
I swung my legs over the side of the bed and stood, unsurprised to see that I was dressed once again, though at least in new clothes. I surveyed the sleek black pants, black vest, and black hoodie, all in a light, adventure-ready fabric that I suspected they didn’t sell at REI.
“What’s this all about?” I asked, extending a foot to survey the sleek leather boot that covered it.
Arm
aeus shrugged. “War is coming, Miss Wilde. It would be best to dress the part.”
He stood, and I took in his own dark pants, sleek shirt, and heavy boots, all in deepest ebony.
“We’re going to look like SWAT,” I complained as he moved toward me, his body already growing more diffuse, mist billowing out around us with a surge of magic.
“Considering who will be watching, I’d suggest that’s not a bad thing.”
He wrapped his arms around me and we vanished into the night.
A breath later, we appeared on the dance floor at the Flamingo casino, and I blinked at the transformation in the place even from the last time I’d seen it. In an unreasonably short time, the stage at the far end of the room had been transformed into a technological wonder, with glittering lights, a full-on DJ station, and special effects that included cannons shooting glitter that somehow managed to explode into the air without ever landing on the dancers or the floor. The Devil’s illusions at work, to a degree I’d never seen before.
He and Nikki might not be an item, exactly, but they certainly were a partnership to be reckoned with.
“Dollface!” Nikki said, surprisingly close. I turned to see her break away from Nigel and a small collection of dancers. As she strolled toward me through the crowd, I noticed she’d changed clothes too. I suspected she kept an entire clothing suite at the Flamingo, given her new role as mistress of ceremonies there. Now she wore a deep-cut silver-sequin dress that hugged her from shoulders to waist and then trailed down one side of her body, a thigh-high slit on the other leg allowing easy movement. Her boots were a sight to behold, tight black leather that stretched up to her knees, studded with a line of rhinestones down her shapely calf. They were heavier duty than her usual stiletto numbers, and I thought of the Magician’s warning. Nikki was dressed to party, but she was absolutely ready for whatever direction that party took.
“So what have we got?” I asked as she approached.