Peace Talks (The Dresden Files, #16)(56)

“If I could do it myself, I wouldn’t be asking you, grasshopper. Can you do it?”

She sipped more of the drink, her eyes sparkling as they narrowed. “Are you questioning my phenomenal cosmic powers?”

“Well, you’ve been so busy globet-rotting doing Winter Lady stuff,” I drawled. “Let’s just say I’m curious if you’ve kept your wizard muscles in shape.”

“Hah!” she said, grinning. Then her expression sobered. “I’ve done some work like it lately. The skills aren’t the issue.” She leaned toward me a little, her eyes intent. “Harry. I need you to be absolutely sure. Once a bargain is done, there’s no going back. And I will hold you to it.” Her expression flickered, for just a second suddenly looking much less sure. “I don’t get a choice about that.”

“He’s my brother,” I said. “I’m sure.”

The Winter Lady nodded, her eyes suddenly luminous, suddenly something a man could drown in. Then she stepped over to me, stood on tiptoe, reached up, and drew my mouth down to hers. She gave me a soft kiss on the mouth that was about ninety-nine percent sisterly, and murmured, “Done.”

There was a sensation of something setting firmly into place, somewhere inside me, as if I’d been made of Legos, one of them had come loose, and Molly had just pressed it solidly back into position. It sent a little frisson through me, and I shivered as the bargain was forged.

And, Hell’s bells, did Molly have soft, lovely lips, which did not bear thinking on.

She stepped away from me much more slowly, her eyes down. She brushed her hand over her mouth and muttered, “Mab’s going to be furious if I don’t get the leshyie numbers up, but …” She nodded. “I’ll build your toy for you.”

“You’re the best.”

“I’m awesome,” she agreed. “But this is a mess. I don’t know how much direct help I’ll be able to give.”

“At this point,” I said, “I’ll take whatever I can get.”





17


I drove Molly back to town and dropped her off at the svartalf embassy, where the security guard, a conspicuously unfamiliar face, welcomed her at once and with tremendous deference. I still wasn’t clear on what the grasshopper had done for the svartalves to make them so gaga over her, but it was clear that whatever she’d done, she had impressed them with the fact that she was more than a pretty face.

I watched her go in and made sure she was safely in the building, as if I were a teenager dropping off his date five minutes early, and then started driving.

I felt awful.

I felt really, really awful.

And I wanted to go home.

Home, like love, hate, war, and peace, is one of those words that is so important that it doesn’t need more than one syllable. Home is part of the fabric of who humans are. Doesn’t matter if you’re a vampire or a wizard or a secretary or a schoolteacher; you have to have a home, even if only in principle—there has to be a zero point from which you can make comparisons to everything else. Home tends to be it.

That can be a good thing, to help you stay oriented in a very confusing world. If you don’t know where your feet are planted, you’ve got no way to know where you’re heading when you start taking steps. It can be a bad thing, when you run into something so different from home that it scares you and makes you angry. That’s also part of being human.

But there’s a deeper meaning to home. Something simpler, more primal.

It’s where you eat the best food because other predators can’t take it from you very easily there.

It’s where you and your mate are the most intimate.

It’s where you raise your children, safe against a world that can do horrible things to them.

It’s where you sleep, safe.

It’s where you relax.

It’s where you dream.

Home is where you embrace the present and plan the future.

It’s where the books are.

And more than anything else, it’s where you build that world that you want.

I drove through Chicago streets in the early morning and wished that I felt numb. My head hurt from lack of sleep and insufficient amounts of insufficiently nourishing food. My body ached, especially my hands and forearms. My head still spun with motion sickness, my guts sending up frequent complaints.

My brother was in trouble, and I didn’t know if I could get him out.

I thought of Justine’s misery and fear and the trust in her eyes when I’d promised to help Thomas, and suddenly felt very tired.

I very much wanted to go home.

And I didn’t have one.

My comfy, dumpy old apartment was gone, flattened by Gentleman Johnnie Marcone to make way for his stupid little castle and the Bigger Better Brighter Future Society. I mean, that had only been after the Red Court of Vampires had burned my home down, but I guess I’d settled their hash not long after. I was willing to call that one even.

But I missed my couch and the comfy chairs in front of my fire. I missed reading for hours on end with Mouse snoozing comfortably beside me and Mister purring between my ankles. I missed my cluttered, thoroughly functional little magical laboratory in the subbasement, and Bob on the shelf. I missed problems as simple as a rogue sorcerer trying to run his own drug cartel.