Battle Ground (The Dresden Files 17)

It would take time to be sure, but if I was right, by the time I was done with the place, I’d have a redoubt damned near as hard to crack as the island, and a heck of a lot more convenient to live in.

“Yeah. Kind of like having a smart house, I guess,” I said. “There’re all sorts of features I’m going to have to work through and figure out.”

Molly gave me a rather wan smile. “Sounds fun.”

“Maybe a little,” I said. “Gotta make sure Marcone didn’t leave me any magical surprises behind.”

“Do you think he would?”

“Not really,” I said. “But home’s a real good thing to be thorough about.” I looked around. “He was supposed to be bringing the keys by. He’s late.” I caught a look on Molly’s face and scowled. “Wait. Did you come down here with me to distract me?”

“Not distract, precisely,” Molly hedged. “But . . . perhaps it’s better if you don’t butt heads with Marcone just now, Harry.”

“Indeed,” came Mab’s cool, calm voice.

The Queen of Air and Darkness entered the great hall through the same doors Ethniu had ducked beneath a few days before and surveyed the bare, clean walls through the shafts of sunlight falling through the hole in the roof. She wore the same business wear she had in the Ministry meeting. “Something of a fixer-upper, isn’t it, my Knight?”

I scowled at her. “Did you collect the keys from Marcone on my behalf?”

“No,” Mab said.

“Because you thought I’d pick a fight with him?”

“Of course not,” Mab said.

“You don’t trust me,” I said.

Mab gave me a bland look. “Do not be ridiculous. I trust you as much as anyone.” She glanced over her shoulder to a second figure entering the shadowed hall.

“Lara,” I said calmly.

The power behind the throne of the White Court entered the room with a faintly cautious air, examining the bare walls curiously. One, two, three dangerous women here with me, and a definite sense of conspiracy-for-my-own-good in the air. It was appropriate to start feeling a little wary, I thought.

“At Mab’s suggestion, I took it upon myself to run the keys down to you,” Lara said. “I pointed out to the good Baron how it made everything happen in front of witnesses, very official and aboveboard, and avoided any possible moments of . . . negative emotional interaction between the two of you.”

I grunted and said, “Between the two of us, eh?”

“Oh, Marcone is furious with you, in his own way,” Lara said. “I’d say you won the round.”

Which did not make me feel a little surge of petty satisfaction. At all. Ahem.

“But you’ve got the keys?” I asked her.

She held them up. She was wearing white gloves to go with the business suit.

“And you guys arranged everything so us boys don’t get all emotional and start punching each other to impress the girls,” I said.

“Or start making out with each other,” Lara volleyed back. “The two of you were looking very warrior-bro chummy, I thought.”

“Ew,” I said, and held out my hands. “How do I know you didn’t make a copy of them for yourself?”

“Mab was with me,” Lara said. She crossed the room to drop the keys in my hand without touching me. “And as if you weren’t going to change all the locks first thing, anyway.”

I bounced the keys, two copies of a single master key, in my hand, then slipped them into my pocket. “I wouldn’t have punched him in the nose. I would have been nice. As long as he was.”

“Of course,” Lara said, nodding firmly. “You’re both very mature.”

I sniffed haughtily.

Both of us were kidding around, rather than moving right into what was coming next. Neither one of us liked thinking about the fact that not only had we lost Thomas; we’d failed him, too.

“Did your people find anything else?” I asked.

Lara’s expression sobered. “The ship was found sunk in two feet of water off a beach in Indiana. Recovery operations underway.”

I exhaled and nodded my thanks to her. “So, Justine made it to shore.”

Lara nodded. “But where she went after that, we don’t know. My people are looking, but it’s a very large world.”

“Finding people is what I do,” I said. “If you hold down your end, I’ll start from mine. Between us, we’ll catch her.”

“If we do,” Lara said, “do you really think you can cast out . . .” Her voice lowered. She never said the word Nemesis.

“I don’t know,” I said. “But we owe it to Thomas to try to save her. And the child.”

Lara’s eyes became grim, and she gave me a small, firm nod and offered me her hand. “Shake on it, wizard?”

I nodded and traded grips with her. “Agreed.”

And a flickering something went between us. It wasn’t White Court mojo, I didn’t think. Just . . . a shivering note of energy. A harmony.

It was a promise both of us had put a measure of will behind. It was a promise both of us meant to keep.

We both had the same feelings about family.

“Excellent,” said Mab from behind us. “Lady Lara, upon due consideration, your third favor is granted. You have my permission to court my Knight. The wedding will commence at sundown.”

“Uh,” I said, “what?”

Lara arched an eyebrow. “What?”

“WHAT!!??” sputtered Molly.

I blinked at her. Then at Mab. Then at Lara. And then Lara and I both more or less simultaneously jerked our hands out of the grip they’d been in.

“The third favor requested of Winter,” Mab clarified. “Lady Lara desired a binding alliance with Winter. This seems wise to us. It will be done.”

“Not that part,” I stammered. “The part with a wedding.”

“The fusion of bloodlines is how these things are generally arranged,” Mab said in a deadly reasonable tone. “And you passed responsibility for such decisions to me when you swore your oaths, my Knight.”

“Hey, didn’t nobody say anything about weddings,” I protested.

Mab stared at me for half of a frozen second before saying, “You knew.”

Yeah, well. There wasn’t any weaseling out of that one. When Mab had staked her claim, she had done so in . . . an unmistakably intimate and thorough fashion. Mab had laid claim to my life. And I’d agreed to it. Also unmistakably.