Jim Butcher: Summer Knight

I leaned against the doorway close to her. "You got out okay, I guess."

"So did you. Did Mab pay up?"

I nodded. "Yeah. What about you? Are you still beholden to Summer?"

Elaine shrugged. "I owed everything to Aurora. Even if she'd wanted to quibble about whether or not I'd paid her back in full, it's a moot point now."

"Where are you going?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. Somewhere with a lot of people. Maybe go to school for a while." She took a deep breath and then said, "Harry, I'm sorry things went like that. I was afraid to tell you about Aurora. I guess I should have known better. I'm glad you came through it all right. Really glad."

I had a lot of answers to that, but the one I picked was, "She thought she was doing something good. I guess I can see how you'd … Look, it's done."

She nodded. Then she said, "I saw the pictures on your mantel. Of Susan. Those letters. And that engagement ring."

I glanced back at the mantel and felt bad in all kinds of ways. "Yeah."

"You love her," Elaine said.

I nodded.

She let out a breath and looked down, so that the bill of her hat hid her eyes. "Then can I give you some advice?"

"Why not."

She looked up and said, "Stop feeling sorry for yourself, Harry."

I blinked and said, "What?"

She gestured at my apartment. "You were living in a sewer, Harry. I understand that there's something you're blaming yourself for. I'm just guessing at the details, but it's pretty clear you were driving yourself into the ground because of it. Get over it. You aren't going to do her any good as a living mildew collection. Stop thinking about how bad you feel—because if she cares about you at all, it would tear her up to see you like I saw you a few days ago."

I stared at her for a moment and then said, "Romantic advice. From you."

She flashed me half of a smile and said, "Yeah. The irony. I'll see you around."

I nodded and said, "Good-bye, Elaine."

She leaned up and kissed my cheek again, then turned and left. I watched her go. And illegal mind fog or not, I never mentioned her to the Council.

Later that night I showed up at Billy's apartment. Laughter drifted out under the door, along with music and the smell of delivered pizza. I knocked and Billy answered the door. Conversation ceased inside.

I came into the apartment. A dozen wounded, bruised, cut, and happy werewolves watched me from around a long table scattered with drinks, Pizza Spress boxes, dice, pencils, pads of paper, and little inch-tall models on a big sheet of graph paper.

"Billy," I said. "And the rest of you guys, I just wanted to say that you really handled yourselves up there. A lot better than I expected or hoped. I should have given you more credit. Thank you."

Billy nodded and said, "It was worth it. Right?"

There was a murmur of agreement from the room.

I nodded. "Okay, then. Someone get me a pizza and a Coke and some dice, but I want it understood that I'm going to need thews."

Billy blinked at me. "What?"

"Thews," I said. "I want big, bulging thews, and I don't want to have to think too much."

His face split in a grin. "Georgia, do we have a barbarian character sheet left?"

"Sure," Georgia said, and went to a file cabinet.

I took a seat at the table and got handed pizza and Coke, and listened to the voices and chatter start up again, and thought to myself that it was a whole hell of a lot better than spending another night crucifying myself in the lab.

"You know what disappoints me?" Billy asked me after a while.

"No, what?"

"All of those faeries and duels and mad queens and so on, and no one quoted old Billy Shakespeare. Not even once."

I stared at Billy for a minute and started to laugh. My own aches and bruises and cuts and wounds pained me, but it was an honest, stretchy pain, something that was healing. I got myself some dice and some paper and some pencils and settled down with friends to pretend to be Thorg the Barbarian, to eat, drink, and be merry.

Lord, what fools these mortals be.