Changes (The Dresden Files #12) - Jim Butcher Page 0,23

had reasons to like me. On the other hand, I thought with a shiver, Arianna was the devil I didn’t know.

Regardless, it wouldn’t be helpful to let knowledge of Maggie become general. I had never planned on making an open case of her blood relation to me before the Council. It wouldn’t win sympathy—only interest. The fewer people who knew I was Maggie’s father, the safer she would be.

And yes.

I am aware of the irony.

I kept looking at Anastasia and asked, “Can I count on you?”

She put her hands flat on the table and looked down at them for a slow five count, considering her words before she answered. “I am not what I was in a fight, Harry.”

I ground my teeth. “So you’ll sit here where it’s safe.”

For the first time since I’d arrived in Edinburgh, Anastasia Luccio’s dark eyes flashed with real anger, and I suddenly remembered that this woman had been the captain of the Wardens for decades. The air between us grew literally physically hotter. “Think carefully,” she said in a very quiet voice, “before you call me a coward.”

Since the stern, iron-haired captain had been magically relocated to the body of a college grad student, her powers had diminished significantly—but her savvy and experience hadn’t. I wouldn’t care to fight Luccio, regardless of our relative strengths. And, hell, it wasn’t as if I hadn’t seen her fight more than once since then.

The anger inside me wanted to spill out onto her. But she deserved better than that from me. I stuffed it back down and lifted the fingers of one hand in a gesture of mute apology. Anastasia Luccio might be many things, but she was no coward—and she was born and raised in a day and age where such an accusation might literally require a duel to be refuted.

No, thank you.

She nodded, mollified, and some of the tension went out of her. “I was going to say that I would be of most use to you here—gathering intelligence, asking questions, and digging up resources for you to use. Of course you should fight—but you can’t do that until you find the girl, and some of our own people will have an interest in making sure you don’t disrupt the peace process. If I am working from here, I can circumvent them.”

I glanced down at my hands, suddenly embarrassed. She was thinking more clearly than I was. “I didn’t even think . . . Yeah. I’m sorry, Ana.”

She inclined her head. “It’s nothing.”

“It was unnecessary.” I scratched at my head. “You think you can sandbag the Merlin?”

She lifted both eyebrows.

“Hell’s bells, I’m shocked he didn’t rip off his hood and start screaming at me. Maybe challenge me, right there. No way he’s going to sit on his ass when he can stick it to me inste—” I broke off speaking as I noticed that Molly’s eyes had gone very wide. I turned to look behind me.

A painting on the wall had just finished sliding to one side, revealing a doorway hidden behind it. The door swung open soundlessly, and a wizard who was the solemn, movie-poster version of old Merlin himself came into the Worry Room.

Arthur Langtry was one of the oldest and the single most powerful wizard on the White Council. His hair and beard were long, all snowy white with threads of silver, and perfectly groomed. His eyes were winter sky blue and alert, his features long, solemn, and noble.

The Merlin of the White Council was dressed in simple white robes. What I could think of only as a gunslinger’s belt of white leather hung at his hips. It looked like it had been designed after tactical gear made for Special Forces operators, but in an insignificant flash of insight I realized that, if anything, the opposite was likely to be true. Multiple vials, probably potions, rode in individual leather cases. The leather-wrapped handle of an anemic rod or a stubby wand poked out of a holster. Several pouches were fastened closed, and looked as though they would contain bits and pieces of the standard wizarding gear I habitually carried with me when I was working. He also bore a long, white staff, a simple wooden pole made of an unfamiliar wood.

I stared at him for a moment. Then I said, “The peace talks are over?”

“Of course not,” the Merlin said. “Goodness, Dresden. We aren’t going to allow the entire Senior Council to stand on a stage within reach of a vampire’s claws.