“I’m not sure how much Catholicism I’ve got to develop,” I said.

Michael waved a hand. “Not religion, Harry. Faith. Faith isn’t all about God, or a god, you know.”

I peered at him.

“Mine is,” he said. “This path is, to me, a very good path. It’s brought me a very wonderful life. But maybe it isn’t the only path. Many children learn things very differently, after all. It seems to me that God should be an excellent teacher enough to take that into account.” He shook his head. “But faith is about more than that. Like Waldo, for example.”

“How do you mean?” I asked.

“He’s not particularly religious,” Michael said. “But I’ve never, ever met an individual more dedicated to the idea that tomorrow can be better than today. That people, all of us, have the ability to take action to make things better—and that friends always help. Despite all the ugliness he’s seen, in his job and in his other, ah, interests. He holds on to that.”

“Polka in the morgue,” I said.

Michael smiled. “Yes. Yes, exactly. But I think you miss my point.”

I tilted my head at him.

“He has faith in you, Harry Dresden,” Michael said. “In the path you’ve walked, and in which he now emulates you.”

I felt my eyebrows slowly climb in horror. “ He … what now?”

Michael nodded, amused. “You’re an example. To Waldo.” His voice softened. “To Molly.”

I sighed. “Yeah.”

“You might think about them, when you consider your next steps. And you might try to have a little faith, yourself.”

“In what?”

“In you, man,” he said, almost laughing. “Harry, do you really think you’ve found yourself where you have, time and time again, at the random whims of the universe? Have you noticed how often you’ve managed to emerge more or less triumphant?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Sort of.”

“Then perhaps you are the right person, in the right place, at the right time,” Michael said. “Again. Have faith in that. And get some sleep.”

I glared at him for a minute. “Seems an awfully egotistical way to look at the universe,” I said darkly.

“How can it be egotistical when I’m the one who had to point it out to you?” Michael countered.

Michael was just better at this kind of talk than me. I glowered at him and then sneered in concession. “I’ll try to sleep. No promises.”

“Good,” he said. He limped over to a small refrigerator and got out a couple of bottles of water. He brought one to me and I accepted it. We drank them together in silence. Then Michael said, “Harry?”

“Yeah?”

“Have you seen much of Molly lately?”

“A little,” I said.

He hesitated for a long moment before saying slowly, “You might … ask her to check in with us?”

I lifted my eyebrows. “Hasn’t she?”

“Not face-to-face,” he said. “Not in some time.”

“She’s been very busy in her new job, I know, a lot of travel …” I began.

Michael gave me a very direct look. “Harry. Please don’t assume that I do not realize secrets are being kept from me. Tolerance is not the same as ignorance. But I trust you. I trust Molly.”

I keyed into what was going on. “Ah. But Charity doesn’t.”

Michael hedged. “ She … is worried that her daughter is a very young person moving in a world that rewards inexperience with pain. She very much wants to be sure her daughter is all right. And I am not sure that is an unreasonable position.”

It had begun to dawn on me, through all the awful, that Molly still hadn’t told her mom and dad about her new gig as the Winter Lady. And it had been … how long now?

Hell’s bells. My stomach sank a little. I wasn’t at all sure how well Charity and Michael would react to the news that their daughter had gotten herself knit to the wicked Winter Fae. That was a far, far cry from merely hanging out with the wrong crowd. If she’d come directly to them, at the beginning, it might have been talked through immediately. But after a year and more of doubt and silence and avoidance and worry … Wow.

Family complicates things.

And, after all, they were both absolutely right to be worried about their daughter.

Hell. I was.

“Maybe it isn’t,” I allowed.

“Thank you,” he said. “I know she’s a grown woman now, but … she’s also still our little girl.”

“I’m sure she’d roll her eyes to hear it,” I said.

“Likely,” Michael said, his smile a little sad. “But perhaps she’ll humor us.”

“I’ll talk to Molly,” I promised.

And yawned.

Yeah. That’s what I would do. Be sane. Be smart. Get some rest and come at them fresh, Harry.

Assuming you figure out who they are.

18

The Carpenters had a number of empty bedrooms these days, and I crashed in Daniel’s old room. After recovering from his injuries, and avoiding what could have been a serious scrape with the law, Daniel had re-upped with the military. He was on a base in the Southwest somewhere, married, with the family’s first grandchild on the way.

There was a very lonely quality to his old room—posters on the wall advertised bands that few people cared about anymore. The clothes hanging in the closet were years out of style, waiting faithfully for someone who might not even fit into them anymore. The bed seemed too small for the man I knew, who I’d seen fighting some genuine darkness, and paying the price for his courage, and it was certainly too small for the husband and father he’d become.

But I bet it would make a great room for grandkids to stay in when they visited fussy old Grandma and Grandpa Carpenter, the boring squares who never did anything interesting.

Hah.

And meanwhile, it would do quite well for a worried, world-weary wizard.

I slept, not long enough but very hard, and woke to a small face about two inches from mine and late-afternoon sunlight coming through the window.

“Hi,” Maggie said when I managed to get an eye to creak open.

“Hmph,” I said, in as gentle a tone as I could manage.

“Are you awake now?” she asked.

I blinked. It took about five minutes to accomplish that much. “Apparently.”

“Okay,” she said seriously. “I’m not supposed to bother you until you’re awake.” She pushed back from the bed and ran out of the room.

I took that under advisement for a sober moment and then heard her feet pounding back up the stairs. She was carrying a large box, wrapped in white paper and tied with a length of silver cord. She grunted and hefted it onto the general vicinity of my hips, with the inherent accuracy that small children and most animals seemed to possess.

I flinched and caught the box, preventing any real damage, and sat blearily up. “What is this?”

“It was on the porch this morning,” Maggie said. “Mouse doesn’t think there’s a bomb or poison or anything.”

I eyed the box. There was a paper tag on it. I caught it and squinted until I could make out Molly’s handwriting: