Jim Butcher: Cold Days

I walked until we were out of sight of the cottage and the fae down the hill. Then I thumbed back the hammer on the little gun, spun, and put the barrel against Mab’s forehead.

Mab stopped and regarded me with luminous unblinking eyes. “What is the meaning of this?”

“It’s still Halloween,” I said, shaking with exhaustion and rage. “And I am in no mood for games. I want answers.”

“I have turned villages to stone for gestures less insulting than this one,” Mab said in a level tone. “But I am your guest here. And you are clearly overwrought.”

“You’re goddamned right I’m overwrought,” I growled. “You set me up. That’s one thing. I walked into it with open eyes. I get it, and I’ll deal with it. But you set Molly up. Give me one good reason not to put a bullet through your head right now.”

“First,” Mab said, “because you would not survive to finish pulling the trigger. But as threatening your life has never been a successful way to pierce your skull, I will provide you with a second. Miss Carpenter will have difficulty enough learning to cope with the Lady’s mantle without you handing her mine as well. Don’t you think?”

Right. I hadn’t thought about that part. But I wasn’t feeling terribly rational.

“Why?” I demanded. “Why did you do it to her?”

“It was not my intention for her to replace Maeve,” Mab said. “Frankly, I would have considered her a better candidate for Summer.”

“You still haven’t told me why ,” I said.

“I meant Sarissa to take Maeve’s place,” Mab said. “But one does not place all one’s hopes with any one place, person, or plan. Like chess, the superior player does not plan to accomplish a single gambit, a particular entrapment. She establishes her pieces so that regardless of what her enemy does, she has forces ready to respond, to adapt, and to destroy. Molly was made ready as a contingency.”

“In case something happened to your own daughter?” I asked.

“Something had already happened to my daughter,” Mab said. “It was my intention to make Sarissa ready for her new role, much as I made you ready for yours.”

“ That’s why you exposed her to all of those things alongside me?”

“I have no use for weakness, wizard. The situation here developed in a way I did not expect. Molly had originally been positioned with another purpose in mind—but her presence made it possible to defeat the adversary’s gambit.”

“Positioned,” I spat. “Gambit. Is that what Molly is to you? A pawn?”

“No,” Mab said calmly, “not anymore.”

That rocked my head back as surely as if she’d punched me in the nose. I felt a little bit dizzy. I lowered the gun.

“She’s a kid,” I said tiredly. “She had her whole life ahead of her, and you did this to her.”

“Maeve was always overly dramatic, but in this instance she was quite correct. I could not risk killing her if I did not have a vessel on hand to receive her mantle—and the lack of the Winter Lady’s strength would have been critical. It is one of the better plays the adversary has made.”

“You don’t get it, do you?” I said.

“I do not,” she said. “I do not see how what I have done is substantially different from what you have been doing for many years.”

“What?” I asked.

“I gave her power,” she said, as if explaining something simple to a child.

“That is not what I have been doing,” I spat.

“Is it not?” Mab asked. “Have I misunderstood? First you captured her imagination and affection as an associate of her father’s. You made her curious about what you could do, and nurtured that curiosity with silence. Then when she went to explore the Art, you elected not to interfere until such time as she found herself in dire straits—at which point your aid placed her deep within your obligation. You used that and her emotional attachment to you to plant and reap a follower who was talented, loyal, and in your debt. It was actually very well-done.”

I stood there with my mouth open for a second. “That . . . that isn’t . . . what I did.”

Mab leaned closer to me and said, “That is precisely what you did,” she said. “The only thing you did not do is admit to yourself that you were doing it. Which is why you never availed yourself of her charms. You told yourself lovely, idealistic lies, and you had a powerful, talented, loyal girl willing to give her life for yours who also had nowhere else to turn for help. As far as your career as a mentor goes, you grew into much the same image as DuMorne.”

“That . . . that isn’t what I did,” I repeated, harder. “What you’re doing to her will change her.”

“Did she not change after you began to indoctrinate her?” Mab asked. “You were perhaps too soft on her during her training, but had she not already begun to become a different person?”

“A person she chose to be,” I said.

“Did she choose to be born with her gift for the Art? Did she choose to become someone so sensitive that she can hardly remain in a crowded room? I did not do that to her—you did.”

I ground my teeth.

“Consider,” Mab said, “that I have done something for her that you never could have.”

“What’s that, exactly?”

“I have put her beyond the reach of the White Council and their Wardens,” Mab said, again as if explaining something to an idiot. “While they might howl and lecture as much as they wish about an apprentice wizard, they can do nothing at all to the Winter Lady.”

I took a deep breath.

That . . . was also true.

“You’ve made her life so much harder,” I said quietly. I wasn’t saying it to Mab, really. I was just sounding out loud the chain of argument in my head. “But so have I. Especially after Chichén Itzá.”

“You trusted her with your mind and your life,” Mab said. “I took that as a statement of confidence in her abilities. You will be working frequently with the Winter Lady. It seems to me that this would be a most appropriate match.”

“And her duties?” I asked. “What is the purpose of the Winter Lady?”

“That is for her to know,” Mab said. “Know this, my Knight: Had I not considered her an excellent candidate, I would never have had her prepared. She has the basic skills she will need to master the power of the mantle—especially if one she trusts is there to advise and reassure her.”

“You should have spoken to me about this first,” I said. “You should have spoken to her.”

Mab moved so quickly that I literally never saw it. The gun was suddenly, simply gone from my hand and was being pushed into my face—in exactly the same spot where Maeve had been shot.

“I,” Mab said coolly, “am not your servant, Dresden. You are mine.”

“Demonreach,” I said. “If our guest pulls that trigger, take her below and keep her there.”

The guardian spirit’s vast shadow fell over us even though there was nothing actually casting it, and Mab’s eyes widened.

“Servant,” I said. “I don’t like that word. I suggest that you consider where you stand and choose a different term. My Queen. And you will be gentle with that girl, or so help me I will make you regret it.”

Mab’s mouth quirked very slightly—her eyes more so. She looked up at me almost fondly, exhaled, and said, “Finally, a Knight worth the trouble.” She lowered the gun and calmly passed it back to me.

I took it from her.

“Have you any other questions?” she asked.

I frowned, thinking. “Yeah, actually. Someone called Thomas and told him to be ready at the boat when I first got back to town. Do you know anything about that?”