Battle Ground (The Dresden Files 17)

She was right. I was just about too tired to understand English, but she sounded pretty right. So I stumped down to the cabin. She took some time to clean and cover the burns on my left forearm. I’d lost my shield bracelet along the way somewhere. Dammit. I’d have to make another. A real one this time.

I’d need a lab.

I answered questions mechanically as she worked on me.

“So he’s alive. He’s safe,” she said.

“For now,” I said. “He’s in cold storage until we can figure out a way to help him.”

“But . . . I can speak to him?”

I shook my head. “In theory. But he’s been through a lot. He might be recovering for a while.”

“But . . . I can be near him? See him?”

No reason she couldn’t see the crystal Alfred had put Thomas in if she was willing to walk the stairs. “Yes.”

Justine put her arms around my neck and gave me a gentle hug. It was a mark of how weary I was that the Winter mantle sent no surge of desire through me. Justine’s hugs are pretty distracting.

“Thank you, Harry. For saving him. For taking him there. It was a terrible risk. Lara might have killed you. The svartalves would be very angry at you if they knew.”

“He’s family,” I muttered wearily.

“Do . . .” She took a deep breath. “Do you know why? Why he tried to kill Etri?”

I shook my head.

“Was it me?” she asked, her voice sick. “Did someone use me against him?” Her hand went to her belly. “Use us against him?”

“He wasn’t in any shape to explain,” I said. “Maybe he’ll be able to share something with us when we get there.”

Justine bit her lip and bowed her head.

I patted her shoulder clumsily. “Look. I’m gonna close my eyes for a couple. Don’t let me sleep more than twenty minutes. Okay?”

“Of course,” Justine said. “Of course. Rest.”

She said something else, but I had already closed my eyes. I didn’t even bother to lie down first. I was sitting on a bench seat, one that would fold out into a bunk, but it seemed like too much work to do it. So I just let my head fall back against the wall, which on a boat is a bulkhead, and closed my eyes.

You don’t exactly sleep, in situations like that. You close your eyes and stop moving, and then a lot of complicated things happen in your brain.

Mine started replaying the tapes of the evening. Not in order. Not even a highlights reel. Just . . . random images of the past couple of days.

Murphy, gasping. Not in a bad way.

Murphy, at peace. In the worst way.

Maggie, her eyes worried.

I thought of Butters, tense and in pain—and victorious.

I thought of Chandler, just vanishing. Of Yoshimo and Wild Bill, maybe worse than dead.

I thought of the faintly surprised look on the dead face of glamour-Michael.

And my brother.

Thomas, telling me about his child.

Thomas, beaten so badly.

Thomas, struggling to speak.

I thought of my brother’s face, crushed and swollen out of shape.

Junghg. S’Jnngh.

He hadn’t been able to say, “Justine.”

Or maybe he hadn’t been trying to say it.

I thought of the island, disturbed at the great powers expended that night.

The last thing I needed was something slipping out of the prison during all the hubbub.

S’Jnngh, he’d told me.

Why had my brother gone after Etri?

S’Justine, he’d told me.

It’s Justine.

Hell’s bells.

It was Justine.

He’d told me.

My eyes opened suddenly, and too wide.

The cabin was empty.

I got up, slowly and carefully. And I walked very slowly and quietly out onto the deck of the Beetle. I wasn’t sure how much time had gone by. My eyes felt like there were a couple of ounces of sand rubbing around under each lid.

Justine was standing at the front of the ship, looking out into the darkness ahead of us. Toward the island.

She looked over her shoulder at me in the predawn darkness. She was just an outline.

“You’re sure the baby will be all right?” she asked me. “I’ve heard things about that place.”

“If you just dropped in, it would be kind of rough on you,” I said. “But you’re with me. Come in as an invited guest, you’ll be perfectly safe. And that’s what you are. I’m bringing you there myself.”

She gave me a smile that was both worried and relieved, and looked back out at the water.

For a second, I thought about picking up something I might whap her unconscious with, and then discarded the idea. After the night I’d had, I was too exhausted to make such a thing practical. And no matter what you saw in the movies, hitting people in the head was dangerous. I could kill Justine. So instead, I gathered the shreds of what was left of my will and prepared to use them.

“But that was the plan the whole time,” I told her. “Right?”

The figure at the front of the boat went completely still.

“See, there were just too many threads being pulled,” I said. “The attack on the Outer Gates especially. And the Titan herself . . . God, what a blunt instrument. What a big, loud distraction. So that you could get inside.”

Justine’s head turned to face me. The lightening sky was behind her. There was nothing to be seen of her expression but blackness.

I limped forward a couple of paces. Nothing specific was any worse than it had been an hour ago, but even the immunity of the Winter mantle had its limits. My joints felt like they’d been dipped in plaster and were slowly drying stiff.

“And every single living family member of mine, personally, was placed in danger. All of them. To make sure I had the maximum amount of personal worry to distract me.”

Justine has incredible cheekbones. They shifted, slightly altering her shadowy profile as she smiled.

“Something about Justine wasn’t . . . quite right, earlier, in the apartment,” I said. And I let my voice harden. “How long ago did you possess the girl?”

Justine was silent for a moment. Then she shook her head and said, “I think the problem is, you just don’t sound all that bright, wizard. Perhaps it’s skewing my expectations.”