I looked up to see a young man approaching us.

Carlos Ramirez was of average height, maybe of a little more than average muscle. He was filling out, getting that solid adult look to him, though for some reason I still expected to see a gangly kid in his early twenties whenever I saw him. He’d grown his dark hair out longer. His skin was bronzed from inclination and the sun. He walked with difficulty, limping and leaning on a thick cane carved with symbols—his wizard’s staff. He wore jeans and a tank top and a light jacket. Ramirez was solid, a proven fighter, a good man to have at your back, and was one of a very few people on the White Council of Wizardry whom I considered a friend.

“Harry,” he said. He nodded warily at Thomas. “Raith.”

My brother nodded back. “Been a while.”

“Since the Deeps,” Ramirez agreed.

“Carlos,” I said. “How’s your back?”

“I know when it’s going to rain now,” he said, flashing me a quick grin. “Won’t be dancing much for a while. But I won’t miss that damned chair.”

He held up a hand. I bumped fists with him. “What brings you out from the coast?”

“Council business,” he said.

Thomas nodded and said, “I’ll go.”

“No need,” Ramirez said. “This is going public this morning. McCoy thought it would be good for someone you knew to tell you, Harry.”

I grunted and unfastened the damned weighted vest. White Council business, typically, gave me a headache. “What is it this time?”

“Peace talks,” Ramirez said.

I arched an eyebrow. “What, seriously? With the Fomor?”

The supernatural world had been kind of topsy-turvy lately. Some lunatic had managed to wipe out the Red Court of Vampires completely, and the resulting vacuum had destabilized balances of power that were centuries old. The biggest result of the chaos was that the Fomor, an undersea power hardly anyone had spoken about during my lifetime, had risen up with a vengeance, taking territory from various powers and wreaking havoc on ordinary humans—mostly the poor, migrants, people without many champions to stand for them.

“A convocation of the Unseelie Accord signatories,” Ramirez confirmed. “Every major power is coming to the meeting. Apparently, the Fomor requested it. They want to resolve our differences. Everyone’s sending representatives.”

I whistled. That would be something. A gathering of influential members of the greatest powers in the supernatural world, in a time where tensions were high and tempers hot. I pitied the poor town where that little dinner party was going to take place. In fact …

I felt my mouth open. “Wait. They’re doing it here? Here? In Chicago?”

Ramirez shrugged. “Yeah, that’s why McCoy sent me to tell you.”

“Whose stupid idea was that?” I asked.

“That’s the other reason McCoy sent me,” Ramirez said, grinning. “The local baron offered his hospitality.”

“Marcone?” I demanded. Gentleman Johnnie Marcone, former robber baron of Chicago’s outfit, was now Baron Marcone, the only vanilla human being to sign the Unseelie Accords. He’d managed that a few years ago, and he’d been building his power base ever since.

“That stunt he pulled with Mab this spring,” I said, scowling.

Ramirez shrugged and spread his hands. “Marcone maneuvered Nicodemus Archleone into a corner and took everything he had, without breaking a single one of the bylaws of the Accords. Say what you will about the man, but he’s competent. It impressed a lot of people.”

“Yeah,” I said darkly. “That was all him. Tell me that the Council doesn’t want me to be our emissary.”

Ramirez blinked. “Wait, what? Oh … oh God, no, Harry. I mean … no. Just no.”

My brother covered up his mouth with one hand and coughed. I chose to ignore the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes.

Ramirez cleared his throat before continuing. “But they will expect you to be the Council’s liaison with Winter, if needed, and to provide security for the Senior Council members in attendance. Everyone will be conducting themselves under guest-right, but they’ll all bring their own muscle, too.”

“Trust but verify,” I said. I took off the weighted vest with disgust and tossed it onto the beach. It made an extremely weighty thump when it hit.

Ramirez arched an eyebrow. “Christ, Harry. How much does that thing weigh?”

“Two-twenty,” I replied.

He shook his head. His expression, for a moment, was probing and pensive. I’d learned to recognize the look—that “I wonder if Harry Dresden is still Harry Dresden or if the Queen of Air and Darkness has turned him into her personal monster” look.

I get that one a lot these days. Sometimes in the mirror.

I looked down at my feet again and studied the ground. I could see it better as the sun drew nearer the horizon.

“You sure the Senior Council wants me to be on the security team?” I asked.

Ramirez nodded firmly. “I’m heading it up. They told me I could pick my own team. I’m picking you. I want you there.”

“Where you can more easily keep an eye on him,” Thomas murmured.

Ramirez grinned and inclined his head. “Maybe. Or maybe I just want to see some more buildings burn down.” He nodded to me and said, “Harry. I’ll be in touch.”

I nodded back. “Good to see you, ’Los.”

“Raith,” Ramirez said.

“Warden Ramirez,” my brother answered.

Ramirez shambled off, leaning on his cane, moving without much grace but with considerable energy.

“Well,” Thomas said. He watched Ramirez depart, and his eyes narrowed in thought. “It looks like I’d better get moving. Things are going to get complicated.”

“You don’t know that,” I said. “Maybe it’ll be a nice dinner, and everyone will sing ‘Kumbaya’ together.”

He eyed me.

I looked down at my feet again and said, “Yeah. Maybe not.”

He snorted, clapped my arm, and started walking back to the car without saying anything further. I knew he’d wait for me.

Once he was gone, I stepped out of the depression in the sand and picked up my weighted vest. Then I turned and studied it as the sun began to come up in earnest and I could finally see clearly.

I’d been standing in a humanoid footprint.

It was well over three feet long.

Once I looked, I saw that there was a line of them, with several yards stretching between each one and the next. The line led toward the water. The rising lakeshore breeze was already beginning to blur the footprints’ outlines.

Maybe their appearance was a complete coincidence.

Yeah. Maybe not.

I slung the weighted vest over my shoulder and started trudging back to the car. I had that sinking feeling that things were about to get hectic again.

2

Thomas came with me back to my place for a post-exercise breakfast.

Well. Technically, it was Molly’s place. But she wasn’t around much, and I was living there.

The svartalf embassy in Chicago was a neat little building in the business district, with a lawn that was an absolute gaping expanse when you considered the cost of real estate in town. It looked like the kind of building that should be full of people in severely sober business attire, doing things with money and numbers that were too complicated, fussy, and god-awful boring to be widely understood.