“Wizard McCoy was the only actual Senior Council member on the stage,” he said, and then grimaced. “Aside from Cristos, of course, who is unaware of the security measure. The envoy might well be an assassin.”
I worked my jaw a few times and said, “So. You left him up there by himself while you played it safe.”
The Merlin shrugged. “One of us had to be there to handle any questions. It was McCoy’s idea, Dresden. He is an irritating, arrogant, and formidable man.”
I scowled and mentally flogged my brain for slacking, forcing myself to see past my emotionally driven hostile response. “You don’t trust the vampires,” I said slowly. “You aren’t drinking the Kool-Aid on this peace conference.”
Langtry looked at me patiently. Then he looked at Luccio.
“Jonestown,” she provided. “The mass suicide last century.”
He frowned at that and then nodded. “Ah, I see the metaphor. No, Dresden, we are not willing to simply accept them at their word—but a great many people on the Council do not concur. Cristos has garnered an enormous number of supporters who very much want to embrace the terms of peace.”
“If you don’t want to call off the war,” I said, “then why the hell did you stop me, Captain Luccio? I could have fixed it for you right there.”
“You wouldn’t have,” Langtry said calmly. “You would have been knocked senseless and thrown in a hole.” A faint smile touched his lips as he spoke the words. “Granted, a pleasant notion, but not a practical one.”
Next to me, Molly put her elbows on the table and propped up her chin in her hands, staring at the Merlin thoughtfully.
My brain kept chugging. I think I can, I think I can. When it got to the top of the hill, my eyes widened. “You aren’t planning to smoke the peace pipe. You’re expecting an attack.”
He looked at me blandly, and rested one hand on the hilt of his combat wand as if by pure coincidence. “Egad. What gave it away, Dresden?”
I started to say something hot in reply, Merlin or no Merlin, but Anastasia put a hand on my wrist. “Our sources,” she said, overriding my incipient insult, “have reported a great deal of activity in the Red Court camp. They’re mobilizing.”
I looked back and forth between them. “You figure they’re trying a Trojan horse?”
“Or some variant thereof,” Langtry replied.
“So we’re getting ready for it,” Anastasia said. “As well as preparing the heaviest counterattack we’ve thrown at them yet.”
“Um,” Molly said, “what if they’re serious about making peace?”
Everyone looked at her, and my apprentice visibly wilted beneath the Merlin’s gaze.
“It might happen,” she said.
Langtry smiled faintly. “The leopard cannot change his spots, Miss Carpenter. Sheep can befriend a hungry wolf only briefly. The Red Court is all savagery and crocodile tears. If they make peace, it is only because they need the time to replenish themselves before fighting anew.”
“Really old things get set in their ways,” I confirmed to Molly, my tone including Langtry as a matter of course. “Always hope for the best and prepare for the worst.”
Molly chewed her lip thoughtfully and nodded.
Langtry eyed me and said, “Need I explain why I have explained, Dresden?”
“Maybe you’d better,” I said. “I mean, you didn’t use illustrations or anything, Professor.”
Langtry inhaled, briefly closed his eyes, and then looked away from me.
“Um?” Molly said, frowning.
“We want the Red Court to attack, if that is their intention,” I told her. “We want the Red Court to think their trick is working. We want them to be overconfident. Then when they hit us, we hit them back so hard and fast that they don’t know it’s coming until it’s over.”
“No,” Langtry said. “So they never knew it was coming. Period. We will no longer wage a war with that filth, cold, hot, or otherwise. We’re going to destroy them, root and branch.” He lifted his chin slightly as his voice turned to frost. “We’re going to exterminate them.”
Silence followed. The fire crackled cheerfully.
I felt my hands clench into fists. “But you need them to expose themselves first. And that,” I whispered, “is why you’re going to ask me to lay off Duchess Arianna.”
“Don’t be absurd,” Langtry said in a calm, quiet voice. “I am not asking you. I am ordering you to desist, Warden Dresden.”
“And let the child die,” I said.
“In all probability the child is already dead, or else turned,” Langtry said. “And even if she still survives, we must