Battle Ground (The Dresden Files #17) - Jim Butcher Page 0,160

and a little will away from being an excellent ointment against fae glamour, if you can keep your eyes open. Seriously, that stuff is borderline magical off the shelf.)

By the time the needs of my body had been seen to as best as possible, I looked and felt like a mummy, wrapped and way too herbal scented, dried out and too stiff to move when I finally crashed into the bed in the Carpenters’ (original) guest room. They had some extras now. I think I slept for about a day. I remember eating ravenously a couple of times. And then I just lay there with my eyes closed for a long time, weeping silently. And I woke up holding a sleeping Maggie, with Mouse curled into his tiniest ball on the bottom two-thirds of the bed, on what I think was the second morning, and felt battered and exhausted and mostly human.

I made my daughter breakfast. And I did a lot of thinking.

Those first few days, when I moved around Chicago at all, I did it careful. Real careful. Like, having four full-grown werewolves with me or nearby at all times careful. I got out, got my bearings, and started moving.

Will and the Alphas came with me to the session of the first-ever Unseelie Accords Executive Ministry meeting. War with the Fomor had been declared by unanimous consent within the Accorded nations, and the Ministry was supposed to determine what to do about it, starting with dealing with the aftermath of the Battle of the Bean.

No one invited me to the Ministry meeting, in a private club in one of the gorgeous old stone buildings in Oldtown, so I did it myself. The place was hidden behind a web of veils and glamours so thick and intricate that it made me a little dizzy just sensing it. If I hadn’t known exactly where I was going and exactly what I was looking for, I’d have wandered right past the place.

When I came in, there was a waiting room where several people came to their feet—a Sidhe warrior from either Court, Miss Gard, a svartalf I didn’t recognize, and Freydis, who was covered with bumps and bruises and still-healing cuts and looked relaxed for the first time since I’d seen her.

“Easy, people,” I said. “I came to talk.”

They all eyed me warily, which was to say down the barrels of their guns. Except for Freydis, who kept reading her magazine and just looked amused.

Well. Granted I looked like ten miles of bad road in my battle-stained black leather duster. And my eyes were watery from the damned hurry-up Tiger Balm antiglamour ointment I’d whipped up to help find the place. And also I had four battle-hardened werewolves with me.

I guess I can see it.

I got out a cloth and wiped the ointment off my cheekbones, blinking more tears out of my eyes, while making uncomfortable noises. It’s difficult to be intimidating when you look ridiculous. By the time I was done and could see properly again, most of the guns were half-lowered.

“Gard,” I said. Whenever you’re facing a bunch of people, do whatever you can to face one person. It takes some of the psychological advantage of numbers away. “You know me. I need to speak to them.”

Gard lowered her weapon entirely, without holstering it. “The Ministry is meeting in closed session.”

I faced her and said, quietly and firmly, “I have earned the right to speak. By deed. Or none of us would be here.”

Gard stared at me for a long moment.

And the corner of her mouth twitched.

* * *

* * *

The Ministry had met in a ballroom big enough for a basketball game, its curtains drawn against any view from outside. The interior of the place had been filled with light so brilliant and omnipresent that shadows had nowhere to fall. There was no furniture in the place—just light and open flooring, and a circle of beings facing one another.

I closed the door behind me and limped forward into the light, squinting as my pupils got more of a workout than they’d had in a while. I suppose sunglasses would have defeated the point.

There were things out there that lived, and listened, in shadows.

I walked forward into shocked silence.

Marcone stood there, in his suit, looking unstained by recent events. Vadderung looked like an older, leaner version of approximately the same creature, a wolfhound standing beside a mastiff. Mab had adopted her corporate appearance for the meeting, apparently keeping in theme