“Etri and his people look like a batch of little geeks,” I said. “You of all people shouldn’t make the mistake of falling for appearances. If they were weak, someone would have offed them by now.”

Lara clenched her jaw. “If I don’t create some options, I’m going to have to leave Thomas to rot.” She inhaled. “Or change my posture.”

Which was a polite way to say Start Killing People.

I regarded Lara obliquely for a moment. Maybe she wasn’t running on the kind of cold political calculation she’d led me to believe she had embraced. Maybe things weren’t quite as clear where her baby brother was concerned as she had led me to believe.

I was pretty sure I hadn’t been doing the peace process any favors lately, so I pondered as hard as I could. “When you have a problem, you have a problem,” I said thoughtfully. I nodded at Cristos. “When you have two problems, sometimes one of them is a solution in disguise.”

Lara eyed me and narrowed her eyes.

“Cristos thinks he’s a statesman, brokering peace and justice, that kind of thing,” I said. I took a deep breath. “Ask him for his help.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Makes him look good if he can get both parties to concede something,” I said. “He’s out to gain face and reputation. Etri wants justice and he’s upset enough not to be thinking clearly. If you can’t negotiate something out of that, you aren’t the person I think you are.”

Lara gave me a direct, intense, silent look for a long moment. I could feel the soulgaze forming and averted my eyes before things got any more intimate.

“I want you to introduce me,” she said.

“I’m happy to advise you,” I said. “I’m not sure that it would be helpful to you for me t—”

Her voice hardened. “I am owed favors. You are obliged to repay them.”

And, deep down inside of me, something twisted with acute discomfort, as if Lara’s words had just reached into my guts and started kicking them, then waterboarded my conscience for good measure. Welling up from the Winter mantle was the sure and certain knowledge that Lara was owed, and that it was an injustice too deep to tolerate that she should not be repaid. No matter how inconvenient or personally humiliating it might be.

Wow.

So that’s what it felt like from the faerie side of things.

No wonder so many of them didn’t like me much.

“Fine,” I growled. My voice came out tense, under pressure. I rose and offered her my arm, invisibly shattering the little illusion spell around us. “Come on.”

“Everyone else stay here,” Lara said firmly. She held up a finger to forestall both Freydis’s and Riley’s sudden words of protest. “No. I’m going alone.” She rose and laid her hand lightly on my forearm and nodded to me. I started leading her across the room.

“I regret doing that to you,” she said quietly after a few steps. “He’s family.”

“I didn’t much like it, either,” I said. I still felt faintly queasy, though the discomfort had rapidly begun fading the moment I’d acquiesced. “I get it. Don’t make a habit of it.”

She gave my arm a gentle squeeze of her fingers through the spidersilk suit and glanced up at me with a rather sad smile that showed no regret whatsoever. Her pale grey eyes were resolved. “Only if I must.”

We went across the room to Etri’s seating area, and I walked directly up to the svartalf king.

Cristos, who had been in the middle of saying something very sincerely, looked up at me and frowned. “Warden Dresden.”

“Sorry to interrupt,” I said, even more sincerely, “but I saw an opportunity for us to help out our neighbors.”

Cristos arched an eyebrow and began to speak, but Etri held up a hand and the man fell silent. Yoshimo, standing six feet back and to one side of Cristos, gave me an inquiring glance.

“Etri,” I said. “Please allow me to introduce Lara Raith, daughter of Lord Raith and his chancellor in the White Court.”

“I know who she is,” Etri said, his gaze level and not quite hostile. He nodded to Lara, who returned the gesture precisely. “I fear we have little to say to one another, Lady Lara.”

“That depends on what is said, sir,” Lara replied. “And when two potential foes meet, the presence of a trusted mutual ally can do much to allay suspicion and fear.” She turned to bow her head to Cristos. “Sir, your reputation for skill in such matters is well-known. I am certain you are aware of the tensions between our realms at this delicate time. Perhaps the wider reconciliation we are all hoping for can begin here, between King Etri’s people and my father’s Court.”

“Ridiculous,” Evanna said, her voice brittle.

Etri gave his sister a weary look and held up his hand again. “Lady Lara, I see little hope for resolution of any kind in this matter but what is prescribed in the Accords.”

Cristos’s eyebrows beetled, and he folded his hands thoughtfully. “And yet, if you see little hope, then a little must be there. Perhaps a little hope is a good place to begin. Surely, Etri, there is no harm in speaking while we are all under the protection of guest-right.”

The svartalf rubbed a few fingers wearily at his forehead, clearly irritated, and glanced up at me. “Harry Dresden,” he said. “You have been a guest and friend to my people. You were friends with Austri. Can this person be trusted?”

I eyed Lara and then turned back to Etri. “If she gives you her word, she’ll keep it.”

Which … wasn’t exactly a lie. Lara was good to her word. So was Mab. So was Etri. And I didn’t particularly trust any of them, beyond that.

But then, when you get right down to it, what else is there? And what more can you really ask for?

Etri studied me for a moment and then nodded, and I got the impression that he had intuited my exact meaning. His mouth set in a line that said he clearly didn’t enjoy the prospect, but that he was also clearly resolved to treating his peers with courtesy. “Very well. Lady Lara, if you would please join us. May I send for a drink?”

Lara smiled warmly at me and settled down in a chair one of Etri’s people carried over for her, to leave her, Etri, and Cristos seated at the points of a triangle. “Thank you, Warden Dresden, for the introduction.”

“Sure,” I said.

“Please,” Cristos said, his voice mellow, his gaze annoyed, “do not let us keep you from your duties any longer, Warden.”

“Yep,” I said to Cristos, in a voice that was louder and more nasal than it had to be. “Okay. Bye-bye.”

I shot Yoshimo with my forefinger and strode away. There was a buffet over in one corner of the hall. My nose caught a whiff of something delicious and reported to my stomach, which instantly started growling. I realized I had been too distracted to have a meal today, which really seemed like something I should grow out of at some point.

Well. There was no sense in going hungry if I didn’t have to, and I suspected that the more time I spent with my mouth full of food, the less time I would have to screw up at this stupid party. I went for the food.

The room was getting even fuller. Under a sickly green banner of cloth sat the LaChaise clan’s representatives, centered on a ruddy-faced, burly man with big old muttonchops who looked like he enjoyed a lot of meat and potatoes. Carter LaChaise, leader of a large family of ghouls who ran a lot of supernatural business in Cajun country. They’d been seated at a table and were dining ravenously on steak tartare, I hoped, and looked weirdly like the painting of the Last Supper.