“There, you see? Next time, we know better! Make better plan!”
I slogged over to him with my furry escort. Butters was lying next to Sanya, carefully flat on his back, his arms folded in a funeral pose. There were two more wolves lying on either side of him, and both looked as though they’d tear to pieces anything that tried to harm him.
“Sir Butters,” I said gravely.
“Nngh,” Butters said. “My jaw. My back.”
“Is fine,” Sanya boomed cheerfully. “If it was really bad, you feel nothing at all. Is good, all this pain!”
Butters squinted at me without moving his head and spoke without taking his teeth apart. “So you got her?”
“It’s done,” I said.
“Sweet,” Butters said, and closed his eyes. “I’m going to sleep for a week.”
“Good, good, you rest until we can find some food,” Sanya told him. “I am starving.”
“Cheerful for a man in your condition,” I noted, peering at him.
“We are too alive to not be cheerful, eh, wizard?” He reached up and clapped my forearm. The burned one. Cheerfully.
I winced. And laughed a little.
Lara’s people were doing a lot of the work, I realized. The members of the House itself were gathered together over to one side, a good fifty yards from anyone, and the pale glitter of hungry vampire eyes told me why. But her hired help, led by Riley, was assisting with the wounded, sharing out water and sorting those in need of immediate care from those who could wait by the Archive—who sported what looked like a broken nose and radiated a sense of . . . not command, but the tangible, absolute authority wielded by those with sure and certain knowledge in an emergency.
Well. The living repository of the accumulated knowledge of mankind probably had a real good idea of the most appropriate measures to take in any given emergency. If she told me what to do in this situation, I’d probably listen and pitch in as well.
I lost track for a bit after that, and found myself seated in the shadow of the Bean, a cup of water in my hands, my staff at my side, the Eye heavy in my pocket. Molly, now wearing what looked like a fireman’s coat, put her fingers under my hands and lifted, nudging the water toward my lips. I drank.
I looked up at her, coughed out some smoke, and then croaked, “Where’d you hide them? Our family?”
She glanced at me and then smiled faintly. “Right across the street. Where they could watch the whole thing. Like in Fellowship.”
“Clever girl,” I said.
She showed me a vulpine smile.
“They’re calling you the Eye-Killer,” she said. “Rumors are spreading about how you defeated a Titan.”
“She had gone through a few sparring partners before she got to me,” I said. “I was just batting cleanup.” I looked around us and said, “Look what we’ve brought upon them, Molls.”
She looked. There were a lot of hurt people. Most of them bore their pain quietly. A few couldn’t. And a lot of them would never make another sound, except during decomposition.
“We have to answer for this,” I said quietly. “We have to help. The wounded.” I didn’t look back at the dark opening in the base of the Bean. “The dead. We owe them. You know I’m right.”
“That could be a tough sell,” she said in quiet answer.
“I’m not asking,” I said. “My fealty is a two-way street. I have gone above and beyond my duty to Winter, right in front of God and everybody, by doing what no one else could. Now Winter will respond in kind, by helping as no one else can. You will help them. Every one of them. Do it in secret, no connections. We’ve interfered in their lives enough. This will happen.”
The Winter Lady gave me a very long, very intent stare.
And then she shivered and bowed her head.
“Already you have bound a Titan. And now a Queen. Sometimes,” Molly whispered, “I’m very proud to be your friend, Harry. And sometimes you frighten me.”
Sometimes I frightened the Winter Lady.
I shook my head. Molly was soon called away to her royal matters. She had plenty of wounded of her own who needed tending to.
I looked over at a slight rise in the ground where Mab and Titania stood, their respective unicorns standing nearby. The Winter unicorn was mostly coated in thick mud. The rain was washing it slowly clean. The two Queens simply faced each other, silent.
I propped my chin in my hand and watched, fascinated.
“The rain