The second svartalf rounded on me with a scowl. “You installed additional security precautions without notifying security?”

“Clearly.”

“That is explicitly against our corporate policy!”

“Oh, get over it, Gedwig,” I said. “For a guy who puts magical land mines all over his lawn, you’re being awfully sensitive.”

“You could have threatened the safety of everyone here.”

I shook my head. “It’s a completely passive plane of force. Extends across the walls on either side, too. Won’t hurt anyone, and you’d need a tank to break it down.” And it had cost me a very long weekend of work installing it.

Gedwig scowled. “This display of your distrust could be considered an insult to svartalf hospitality.”

“My distrust!?” I blurted. “Are you freaking kidding m—” I cocked an eyebrow, turned to Evanna, and asked, “By any chance, does your people’s tongue not have a word for irony?”

“Peace, Gedwig,” Evanna said. “Mister Dresden, can you open the door?”

“It’s easy if you have the key,” I said. I produced the metal door key from my pocket and flipped it around so that she could see the pentacle inscribed on its base. “I think it would be best if I went in alone to talk to Mouse. All right?”

Evanna nodded once. “So be it.”

“But, my lady,” Gedwig began.

She flicked a hand up, palm toward him, and the guard shut his mouth instantly.

I nodded and touched the key to the doorknob. The energy bound in the key was conducted through the metal into the plane of force beyond it, disrupting its flow and shorting out its field. “Be right back,” I said, and opened the door while watching the two security guys. Gedwig looked like he wanted to push in past me, but he held his position behind Evanna as I entered and shut the door behind me.

“Dad!” Maggie said. “You’re home! What’s happening?”

My daughter was sitting on the dinner table, as close to the middle of it as she could get, and her babysitter, Hope Carpenter, sat next to her with an arm protectively around her shoulders. Mouse was pacing steadily around the table, his head down, nose whuffling. He glanced up at me once and shook his ears a little by way of greeting before returning to his rounds.

“Harry,” Hope said. She was a very serious young woman to whom adolescence had been uncommonly generous. Having become an expert father and all, over the past three or four months, I had new insights into how worried Michael would be about how his lovely dark blond daughter might be treated, especially given that …

Stars and stones, Maggie wasn’t all that much younger than Hope, really. In a few more years, would I be the one writhing with protective paternal concern? I would. And that thought was fairly terrifying. Or maybe humiliating. Or both.

Augh. You already have trouble enough on your plate without borrowing more, Dresden.

“Heya, Hobbit,” I told her, and gave them my most reassuring smile. “Uh. How come you guys are up on the table?”

“Because they keep trying to come through the floor and get us!” Maggie said, her voice wavery with fright.

Just then, Mouse whirled his entire body around, his grey mane flying. Maybe three feet to one side of the table, the stone floor suddenly rippled and a svartalf began earthwalking up out of the ground.

Mouse rushed over to the intruder, rose on his hind legs at the last second, and then plunged down onto his front paws, directly onto the inbound svartalf, letting out a dishes-rattling sound that could only technically have been described as a bark. It was more of an explosive roar, and flickering blue sparks leapt from his mane as he struck, even as a wave of supernatural energy washed through the room like a burst of spectral lightning. There was just enough time to see the svartalf flinch, and then suddenly the floor was the floor again, and Mouse had resumed his protective pacing around the table.

“Like that,” Maggie said. “We didn’t even break any rules at all. Get ’em, Mouse!”

“How long has this been going on?” I asked.

Hope shook her head and said, “T-twenty minutes? Half an hour? One minute we were on the couch and then there were these things trying to grab us. If it hadn’t been for Mouse, they would have.”

I felt my jaw clench so hard that my teeth squeaked in protest. Then I turned, picked up my staff, and said, “Stay right there. Good job, boy, keep it up. I’m going to try to sort this out.”

Mouse whuffed an acknowledgment without ceasing his patrol around the girls.

I turned around and went back out to the hall. I might have looked a little angry, because Gedwig and his companion took one look at me, drew their weapons—a pistol in one hand and a slender wavy-bladed dagger in the other—and backed away from each other so that they were flanking me. They didn’t point the guns directly at me or lunge at me with their knives, but everything about their body language suggested to me that they would shoot without hesitation if they had to.

Evanna stood her ground, her expression blandly neutral, and looked up at me expectantly.

I didn’t raise my voice—but I didn’t try to hide the anger in it, either. “Why are your people terrifying two children? What have they done to offend you?”

“Nothing,” Evanna said. “We only sought to put them in protective custody and escort them out of the building through the escape tunnel.”

“I thought you said there was no danger of fire.”

“I did,” Evanna said.

“I just saw one of your people try to grab them,” I said. “Tell them to knock it off. Right now.”

Evanna blinked at me once, then turned and snarled something to Gedwig. He clenched his jaw but nodded, holstered his weapon, and sank into the floor.

“Your anger is misplaced, wizard,” Evanna said, her words clipped. “You are not the one who has been wronged. Blood has been spilled, and those responsible will be made to repay the debt.”

“What the hell does that have to do with me?” I demanded.

Evanna stared at me with her huge dark eyes and said, “I will show you, if you wish.”

“I wish,” I said.

She gestured for the other security guard to lower his weapon, then turned and started walking. She moved quickly for such a bitty thing, and I hurried to keep pace with her.

“An assassin entered the stronghold this evening,” she said.

“What?” I asked. “How did that happen? Your security measures are insane.”

“The way such things generally happen,” she said. “Through treachery. The assassin reached my brother’s business chambers. There were explosions, which started the fire. Several guards were wounded. One threw himself between Etri and harm and paid with his life for his loyalty.”

I leaned my head back and felt the anger evaporating, rapidly transmuting to pure anxiety. Someone had tried to knock off what amounted to a head of state and had gotten close. Etri was no insignificant figure in the supernatural world—he was the heaviest hitter I knew of among his people, and they in turn were the most skilled and serious smiths and crafters and designers on the planet. Hell, I’d bought materials I had needed for magical components from them myself, on a regular basis. They were expensive and worth every penny, even back when I hadn’t had an athletic sock filled with diamonds tucked under my mattress for a rainy day.