or effects as the need arose, and I made sure mine was ready to wreak havoc or reflect energy as needed. Thomas moved in utter silence to the wall beside the door, where he would be within arm’s reach of anyone who came through it. He gripped the knife low along his leg and nodded to me when he was ready.
And I calmly opened the apartment’s front door.
An old man stood there. He was a couple of inches shorter than average, and stout. Like me, he carried a staff, though his was a good deal shorter and, like him, stouter than my own. Some wisps of white and silver hair drifted around his otherwise shining head, though there seemed to be more liver spots on the skin than I remembered from the last time I’d seen him. His dark eyes were bright, though, behind his spectacles, and he wore a plain white cotton T-shirt with his blue overalls and steel-toed work boots. He was my mentor, Ebenezar McCoy, senior member of the White Council of Wizardry.
He was also my grandfather.
The old man eyed me, his brow furrowing in thought, studying me as I stood there, and then my green-glowing staff.
“New work,” he noted. “Dense, though. Maybe a little rough.”
“All I had was a pocketknife,” I said. “No sandpaper. Had to use rocks.”
“Ah,” he said. “May I come in?”
I looked past Ebenezar to where Austri stood in the hall, one hand inside his suit, a couple of fingers pressed to one ear. His lips were moving, though I couldn’t hear what he was saying. “Austri? What’s with the alarm?”
Austri apparently listened to something coming into his ear that only he could hear and nodded. He didn’t take his hand out of his coat when he answered me. “This person is known to the svartalves,” he said. “He is an enforcer for the White Council of Wizardry and is known to be extremely dangerous. He did not follow security protocols.”
“I don’t have forty-eight hours to wait for DNA tests to come back, even if I’d give you any,” Ebenezar growled. “I told you. Etri knows me. He’ll vouch for me.”
There was an odd, almost rippling sound, and suddenly a dozen more svartalves like Austri just slid up out of the floor as if it had been made of water. They were grasping a number of weapons, both modern and ancient—but they didn’t move to attack. Impulsive responses were not a part of their nature. Their expressions were unreadable, but definitely not friendly.
Austri eyed Ebenezar and then looked to me. “Wizard Dresden? Is this person to be considered a guest of Miss Carpenter?”
“That would be simplest for all involved, I think,” I said.
“Simple?” Austri asked. “It is irrelevant how simple or how complicated it may be. Is he Miss Carpenter’s guest or not?”
“He is,” I said. “Let him come in. I’ll take responsibility for his conduct while he is here.”
Austri frowned for a long moment, his expression taking on several nuanced shades of doubt. But he only lowered his hand from his jacket and nodded to me. At a gesture, he and the rest of the svartalf security team filed down the hallway and out of sight.
“Sticklers, aren’t they?” I said.
“Goes a great deal deeper than that,” Ebenezar said.
“You pushed their buttons on purpose,” I said.
“Not at first. But one of them got snotty with me.”
“So you just started walking over them?”
Something mischievous sparkled in the back of his eyes. “It’s good for them, from time to time, for someone to remind them that they can’t exercise control over everything, and that a member of the Senior Council can walk where he chooses to walk.” His eyes crinkled at the corners. “That last guy really got to me.”
“Gedwig,” I said. “The grouchy. He’s always extra paranoid.” I let the power ease out of my staff, and the runes stopped glowing, the light dying away. I made a gesture toward Thomas with one hand, and my brother eased away from the door. Then I stood aside and opened the door wider for my grandfather. “Come in.”
The old man didn’t miss much. He came in with the calm, wary look of a man who isn’t focused on one thing because he’s taking in everything—and immediately spun his staff to point squarely at Thomas.
“What is that thing doing here?” Ebenezar demanded.
Thomas lifted his eyebrows. “Thing? Pretty bold assertion of righteousness from the White Council’s hatchetman.”
As far as I knew, my grandfather didn’t know that Thomas and