Peace Talks (The Dresden Files 16)

“Thank you,” I said, and did. Thomas’s apartment had been done all in art deco and stainless steel. It had been aesthetically excellent, and I’d hated it. Justine’s ongoing presence there had changed things. The furniture was softer and comfier than it had been in the past, and there was more pleasant clutter, including books and a number of different kinds of craft projects, plus a small sewing area added to a corner that had previously contained only a large and expensive vase.

I sat down in the corner of the couch closest to the love seat, where Thomas and Justine habitually resided, generally together.

Justine sat down on her side of the love seat, curling her legs up beneath her, and looked very small.

“This is bad,” she said quietly. “Isn’t it?”

“It’s …” I blew out a breath, choosing my words carefully. “Sticky. This isn’t a problem I can blow up or burn down.”

“You think he’ll get out of it?” she asked.

Hell’s bells. If there was any getting out of this one, I didn’t see how he was going to manage it. The svartalves had the vices of their virtues: Those who labor never to wrong another see scant value in forgiveness. Thomas had betrayed them. They weren’t going to rest until the scales had been balanced to their satisfaction.

“I think,” I said, “that it isn’t over until it’s over. It’s possible that the emissary will find a way to resolve the situation without further loss of life.”

Her dark eyes watched my face closely. “Do you think that’s what will happen?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “We didn’t get to talk much, but Thomas wanted me to come see you and make sure you know that he loves you.”

She made an impatient sound and folded her arms. “If he loved me, then why …” She bit off the words and bowed her head, the composed veneer cracking. She shuddered in silence for a moment before her voice came out again, faded and cracked around the edges. “Why? Why, Harry? I don’t understand why he would do that.”

Hell. I didn’t, either. Things had been moving so fast that there’d been no time to sit down and ask myself some pretty basic questions. Like, why the hell had my brother tried to kill the svartalf king? Was that what had happened at all? Or was it only what had happened from the svartalves’ point of view?

What had my brother been doing? Why had he been doing it?

More questions that needed answers. At this rate, I was going to need a roll of newsprint to get them all written down.

Well then. Answer some questions. Starting with why my brother had gotten violent with the svartalves. And why was Etri still alive, if my brother had set out to kill him? Say what you will about Thomas, he’s good in a fight. Really good. I’d seen him take up gun and blade more times than I could count.

And every time he’d done it, my brother had gone into a fight clear-headed and purposeful. Thomas could fight, but he didn’t do it for fun. So that answered one question, right there.

“Whatever he did,” I said, “he had a good reason.”

“What reason?” she asked, her voice breaking.

“Hell if I know,” I said.

“He told you,” she said. “About me. Us.” She put a hand on her stomach.

“Yeah,” I said. “Um. Congratulations.”

“But what if he … if he doesn’t come home …”

I sat there, feeling helpless. “ Hey … Justine, hey … He’s still alive. And I’m going to make sure he stays that way.”

She looked up at me, loose hairs stuck to the tear streaks on her face. “You are?”

Oh my.

As she looked at me, I realized some part of me had made decisions without checking in with my conscious brain. Again.

I was going to keep my brother alive or die in the effort. It didn’t matter who was standing in the way. Not even if it was Etri and Mab and Lara and the whole White Council to boot.

Oh dear.

Cyclical winds rising. Unprecedented numbers of sharks schooling. Studio execs lurking with contracts for numbered sequels, ad infinitum.

“Yeah,” I said quietly. “I am.”

She leaned forward, her eyes beseeching. “Do you promise, Harry? You?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Me. My word on it, Justine.”

She cracked then, doubling over the hands she held cradling her still-flat tummy, and sobbed.

I couldn’t sit down in the spot on the love seat where my brother should have been. But I knelt on the other side of her and put an arm around her shoulders. “Hey. Hey. I’m right here.”

Justine went limp and wept.

11

I stood in the hall after Justine shut the door behind me and felt terrible.

My brother was going to die if I didn’t do something.

Justine was falling to pieces. I hadn’t been able to do much about that, other than just sit there like a giant wooden statue and put an arm around her and say, “There, there.”

My apartment at the svartalves’ place was clearly a thing of the past at this point. No matter how things played out with Thomas, I wasn’t going to keep Maggie in the same building with people who had either killed my brother or else thirsted for vengeance against him. So even if I got through the next several days alive, I was going to be looking at a move on the other end, which is always awesome.

And then there was the little matter of the peace talks with the Fomor, and the political turmoil within the White Council, and the possibility that I might be cast out of it. Which, personally, I didn’t much mind. The White Council had been mainly a pain in my neck my whole life, but … they also gave me the shelter of their community. I’d made a lot of enemies over the years. One of the reasons they didn’t just openly come to kill me all the time was that the White Council was lurking in the background, the keepers of the secrets of the universe, the men and women who could reach out from anywhere in the world and lay the smack down on their enemies. The last time someone from an Accorded nation had openly set out to attack me directly, some rascal had pulled a satellite out of orbit and right down onto his head.

Granted, he’d had his own reasons for doing it—but as far as the world at large was concerned, the White Council had spoken in a simple and clear voice: Mess with one of us, and you mess with all of us.

If they voted me out, that aegis would be gone. No one would have my back, even theoretically.

No one but Mab.

Granted, I trusted Mab with my back, within certain circumstances, more than almost anyone alive. A monster she might be, but she kept her word and stood by her people. Even so, though, I had no illusions about the fact that she wanted me to be more malleable to her various needs. She wanted me meaner, colder, darker, more vicious, because it would make me better able to do the job of being the Winter Knight. Mab couldn’t push me too hard in that direction, I knew, because it would anger certain people on the Council—and the united White Council was a force not even Mab could casually defy.

But if I was cast out of the Council’s graces … Well. Without the threat of action up to and including all-out war to protect a wizard in good standing, Mab would be free to do a heck of a lot more than offer me fresh cookies when it came to pushing me toward the dark side.