though I had no idea why. I hung on to my poker face. “Why would they?”
“Try to imagine the Aquarium from their point of view. They enter a building with you, along with someone they would not normally bring along—but you have insisted that the police detective accompany your group. As a result, you walk away to a private conference with just you, me, and the Archive’s guard dog. Then the sign goes up, and they can hear a terrible conflict raging. They race to the scene as quickly as possible and find my people dragging you out of the water—to take back the coin you had in your pocket, but your friends had no way of knowing that. They find the Archive gone, her bodyguard wounded or dead, and you being apparently assisted by my people.
“And they never saw what happened,” Nicodemus continued. “To a suspicious mind, you might seem an accomplice to the act.”
I swallowed. “I doubt that.”
“Oh?” Nicodemus said. “Even though you’re about to propose giving me back the coins you took at the Aquarium? Eleven coins, Dresden. Should I recover them, everything you and your people have done during the past few days will mean nothing. I’ll be just as strong and possess the power of the Archive to boot. It is hardly a stretch to consider that you would be ideally positioned to betray them at a critical moment—which this is.”
I…hadn’t thought of it like that.
“‘What if he’s finally falling to the influence of her shadow?’ they’re thinking. ‘What if he’s not wholly in control of his own decisions?’ they’re thinking. Treachery is a more dangerous weapon than any magic, Dresden. I’ve had two thousand years to practice arranging it, and your friends the Knights know it.”
Suddenly Michael’s attitude began to make a lot more sense, and the pot roast fought to come back up. I tried to keep my poker face, but it wouldn’t stick.
“Ouch,” Nicodemus said, his eyes widening. “After all those years of baseless suspicion and hostility from your own Council, that must be a painful realization.” He smirked at Mouse and then at me. “Your little heart must be breaking.”
Mouse pressed his shoulder against my leg and snarled savagely at Nicodemus, taking a step forward.
Nicodemus ignored him, his focus all on me. “It’s a tempting offer,” he said. “Exchanging the coins for the Archive? Presenting me with an opportunity to walk away with every jewel in the vault? It’s something I can hardly ignore. Well-done.”
“So?” I said. “Where do you want to set it up?”
He shook his head. “I don’t,” he said quietly. “This is endgame, Dresden, even if you and yours can’t accept it. Once I have the Archive, the rest is simply an exercise. Losing the coins will hurt, true, but I don’t need them. Thorned Namshiel is of no real use to me in his current condition, and I haven’t worked for two thousand years only to take a gamble at the last second. No deal.”
I swallowed. “Then why are you here?”
“To give you a chance to reconsider,” Nicodemus said. “I think you and I are not so very different. Both of us are creatures of will. Both of us live our lives for ideals, not material things. Both of us are willing to sacrifice to attain our goals.”
“Maybe we should wear matching outfits.”
He spread his hands. “I could be an ally far more effective and dangerous than any you have now. I’m willing to compromise with you, and make some of your goals my own. I can provide you with support beyond anything your own Council has ever done for you. The material gain of such a partnership is a passing matter, ultimately, but wouldn’t you enjoy living in something other than a musty basement? Don’t you get tired of coming home to cold showers, cheap food, and an empty bed?”
I just stared at him.
“A great deal of work needs to be done, and not all of it is repugnant to you. In fact, I should imagine that some of it would prove to be quite satisfying to your personal sense of right and wrong.”
To hell with the poker face. I sneered at him. “Like what?”
“The Red Court is one example,” Nicodemus said. “They’re large, well organized, dangerous to my plans, a plague upon mankind, and aesthetically repugnant. They’re parasites who are inconvenient in the short term, dangerous in the middle distance, and fatal to any long-range plan. They need to be destroyed at some point, in