Battle Ground (The Dresden Files 17)

I nodded. “From what the island says, it’s a standard binding.”

“Whoof,” Ebenezar said, breathing out. “That changes things.”

“Why?”

“Ethniu is a Titan, boy,” he said. “Can you imagine trying to bind Mab?”

I shuddered.

“Well, she’s an order of magnitude beyond that in power and will,” Ebenezar said. “You can’t just go straight up against a mind like that. Not when she’s wearing Titanic bronze.”

“Why not?”

“The stuff . . . it affects Creation on a fundamental level,” he said. “As long as it has enough will behind it, the physical world is going to have a very limited effect on her.”

I squinted at the old man. “So as long as she thinks she’s invincible, she is?”

The old man lifted his eyebrows. “Haven’t ever heard it summed up that way before. But, yes, that’s accurate enough for our purposes.”

“Denial armor,” I muttered. “Hell’s bells. So how do we get through it?”

“We’ll have to soften her up first.”

“How?”

“Whole lot of fighting, I reckon,” the old man said. “Wear her will down.” He sucked in a breath through his teeth. “Think of it like a bunch of farmers fighting an armored knight,” he said. “The knight can take plenty of hits from us, but she’ll hit just as hard or harder, and none of us can take a hit back.”

“So we have to get her where we can come at her from multiple sides,” I said. “Pack tactics. One attracts her attention and another hits her when she isn’t looking.”

“And enough hits will wear her down,” Ebenezar replied. “Of course, the armored knight knows this. She’ll play to avoid it if she can, but she has an objective to complete, so she can’t afford to stay where it’s safe. But if too many of us gather in one place, we’ll be juicy targets for the Eye.”

“So this is as much a deception as anything else,” I said. “We’ve got to get her to commit somewhere hard enough that we can pound her enough to wear down her will. But she’ll be expecting that—so it has to be a juicy enough target that she can’t resist exposing herself.” I shook my head. “That’s not a good situation for us. We’re depending on her to make a mistake.”

Mab was suddenly there, in her battle gown, a sheath of mail beneath a cloak of flawless white and silver. Her hair spilled down around it like white clouds and silk.

“I assume, my Knight,” she said, “that you consulted with your island?”

I produced the binding crystal from my pocket and showed her.

“Excellent,” she said. “I do not believe Ethniu is aware of the danger the island could pose to her. She has no concept of professionalism. We can expect more mistakes from her.”

“Why do you say that?” I asked.

“She is here,” Mab said. “She could have chosen any city and accomplished her greater goal. But instead she is here.”

I tilted my head and frowned before I understood. “Because you’re here,” I said. “It’s personal.”

Mab’s mouth ticked up at one corner. “It is an old score, between her people and the Sidhe. An old hatred. The hardest kind to resist.”

I glanced aside at my grandfather. The old man didn’t react.

“She must cast down what I have wrought,” Mab said. “And she seeks to drive away my peers and allies by demonstrating my weakness—now, on the shortest night of the year, when my power is at its nadir.”

I looked over at the other side of the roof, where the Summer and Winter Ladies both stood in the center of a swarm of glowing, winged Little Folk that came streaking in and away in blurs of colored light. Both Molly and Sarissa had their eyes closed, and their lips were murmuring.

“Given the power of her will,” I said, “I’m not so sure the island is that big a threat. It’s still got to be me who shoves her in the bottle.”

Mab gave me a look that reminded me of why she was the Queen of Air and Darkness, and her eyes were as cold and grey as chains. “Any will can be broken.”

I shuddered a little. On the inside. Because I really didn’t want Mab to see it.

“A lot is going to rest on his shoulders,” Ebenezar said gruffly. “So it’ll be critical to keep him out of the fighting until it’s time.”

Mab gave Ebenezar a glance and what could only be in the most technical sense considered a tiny snort. “If you wished an instrument of careful precision and restraint,” she said, “you chose the wrong champion, Blackstaff.”

The old man glowered at the Queen of Air and Darkness and said, “Nonetheless.”

“When horrors begin to tear apart the people of this city,” Mab said calmly, “when its women and children cry out for help, I should find amusement in seeing you attempt to restrain him.”

I lifted a hand and said to Mab, respectfully, “He’s right. If I’m the play, then I’ve got to be ready when it’s time.”

Mab gave me a look with something in it that was almost like pity. Or possibly contempt. “As if you could restrain yourself any more ably than he could.” She shook her head. “Be comforted, my Knight: I chose you for times precisely such as these, when an elemental of destruction is what is most needed.”

“What?” I said.

Mab did something more frightening than most monsters could.

She smiled.

It was genuine.

“Harry,” she said, her voice almost warm. “From the first time I laid eyes upon you, I saw a being who had the potential for true greatness.” She laid a slim, cool hand on my forearm, and pride joined the smile already on her face. “It is almost time for you to begin to understand it yourself. And once you do, once you understand, we will do great things together.”

The old man stepped between us, between the Queen of Air and Darkness and me. And he said, in a voice like granite, “He is not your weapon, Mab.”

Mab’s smile gained a hungry, wolfish edge. “He is exactly my weapon,” she hissed. “By his own choice. Which is more than your people ever gave him. And they call the Sidhe wicked and deceitful.”

I blinked and shot a glance at Ebenezar.

The old man wouldn’t meet my eyes.

Mab laughed, low and amused. She stepped around Ebenezar, running a hand along my shoulder as one might the fender of a car one was particularly proud to possess. “Do what you can to stay within sight during the battle, my Knight. And be what you are. Ethniu will be what she is. She has no other alternative.” She nodded to Ebenezar and said, “Br—”