3

I summoned my will and channeled power into my staff. The runes spiraling along its length smoldered with emerald fire, and tiny wisps of smoke rose from it. The clean, smoky scent of fresh-scorched wood laced the air. Runes and sigils of green light spangled the walls.

A wizard’s staff is a versatile tool. I could use one to project any number of forces or effects as the need arose, and I made sure mine was ready to wreak havoc or reflect energy as needed. Thomas moved in utter silence to the wall beside the door, where he would be within arm’s reach of anyone who came through it. He gripped the knife low along his leg and nodded to me when he was ready.

And I calmly opened the apartment’s front door.

An old man stood there. He was a couple of inches shorter than average, and stout. Like me, he carried a staff, though his was a good deal shorter and, like him, stouter than my own. Some wisps of white and silver hair drifted around his otherwise shining head, though there seemed to be more liver spots on the skin than I remembered from the last time I’d seen him. His dark eyes were bright, though, behind his spectacles, and he wore a plain white cotton T-shirt with his blue overalls and steel-toed work boots. He was my mentor, Ebenezar McCoy, senior member of the White Council of Wizardry.

He was also my grandfather.

The old man eyed me, his brow furrowing in thought, studying me as I stood there, and then my green-glowing staff.

“New work,” he noted. “Dense, though. Maybe a little rough.”

“All I had was a pocketknife,” I said. “No sandpaper. Had to use rocks.”

“Ah,” he said. “May I come in?”

I looked past Ebenezar to where Austri stood in the hall, one hand inside his suit, a couple of fingers pressed to one ear. His lips were moving, though I couldn’t hear what he was saying. “Austri? What’s with the alarm?”

Austri apparently listened to something coming into his ear that only he could hear and nodded. He didn’t take his hand out of his coat when he answered me. “This person is known to the svartalves,” he said. “He is an enforcer for the White Council of Wizardry and is known to be extremely dangerous. He did not follow security protocols.”

“I don’t have forty-eight hours to wait for DNA tests to come back, even if I’d give you any,” Ebenezar growled. “I told you. Etri knows me. He’ll vouch for me.”

There was an odd, almost rippling sound, and suddenly a dozen more svartalves like Austri just slid up out of the floor as if it had been made of water. They were grasping a number of weapons, both modern and ancient—but they didn’t move to attack. Impulsive responses were not a part of their nature. Their expressions were unreadable, but definitely not friendly.

Austri eyed Ebenezar and then looked to me. “Wizard Dresden? Is this person to be considered a guest of Miss Carpenter?”

“That would be simplest for all involved, I think,” I said.

“Simple?” Austri asked. “It is irrelevant how simple or how complicated it may be. Is he Miss Carpenter’s guest or not?”

“He is,” I said. “Let him come in. I’ll take responsibility for his conduct while he is here.”

Austri frowned for a long moment, his expression taking on several nuanced shades of doubt. But he only lowered his hand from his jacket and nodded to me. At a gesture, he and the rest of the svartalf security team filed down the hallway and out of sight.

“Sticklers, aren’t they?” I said.

“Goes a great deal deeper than that,” Ebenezar said.

“You pushed their buttons on purpose,” I said.

“Not at first. But one of them got snotty with me.”

“So you just started walking over them?”

Something mischievous sparkled in the back of his eyes. “It’s good for them, from time to time, for someone to remind them that they can’t exercise control over everything, and that a member of the Senior Council can walk where he chooses to walk.” His eyes crinkled at the corners. “That last guy really got to me.”

“Gedwig,” I said. “The grouchy. He’s always extra paranoid.” I let the power ease out of my staff, and the runes stopped glowing, the light dying away. I made a gesture toward Thomas with one hand, and my brother eased away from the door. Then I stood aside and opened the door wider for my grandfather. “Come in.”

The old man didn’t miss much. He came in with the calm, wary look of a man who isn’t focused on one thing because he’s taking in everything—and immediately spun his staff to point squarely at Thomas.

“What is that thing doing here?” Ebenezar demanded.

Thomas lifted his eyebrows. “Thing? Pretty bold assertion of righteousness from the White Council’s hatchetman.”

As far as I knew, my grandfather didn’t know that Thomas and I shared a mother, his daughter. He didn’t know he had another grandson. Ebenezar had … kind of a thing about White Court vampires.

(The Paranet called them “whampires,” but I refused to cave in to such silliness, unless it became entirely convenient.)

“Vampire,” my grandfather growled, “you’ve been a useful ally to young Dresden up until now. Don’t go ruining things by getting my attention.”

Thomas’s eyes glittered a shade brighter, and he put on the smile he wore when he was exceptionally furious. “I’m hearing a lot of loud talk from a guy who let himself get this close to someone like me without having a shield already up.”

“Why, you slick little punk,” my grandfather began.

The stench of burning batter filled the air, and I stalked over to the stove, where I flipped the pancake, which had burned during the altercation. Then I slapped the spatula back down onto the counter with unnecessary force and said, words sizzling with vitriol, “Gentlemen, I should not need to remind either of you that you are guests in my home.”

And that hit them both like a bucket of cold water.

In our world, maybe the closest thing to inviolable laws are the ancient traditions of guest-right and host-right. In them, guests are to be honored and treated as members of the host’s own family. And they, in turn, are expected to behave as respectful members of the host’s own family.

And in this case we all were actual family, only my grandfather didn’t know it.

But Thomas backed off a bit more, his tense frame easing out of its predatory stance, and my grandfather lowered his staff and turned until he was partially facing away from Thomas.

“Sorry, Harry,” Thomas said. “Won’t happen again.”

I nodded at him and glanced at the old man.

“I owe you an apology,” my grandfather said to me, with heavy emphasis on the pronouns. “Shouldn’t have behaved like that in your home. I’m sorry.”

Well, clearly this morning wasn’t going in anyone’s photo album. But it wasn’t going to result in a funeral, either. Take your wins where you can get them, I guess.

“Thank you,” I said to them both. I held out my hand, and Thomas passed me the chef knife’s handle.

I put the knife away and cleared my throat at my grandfather.

He eyed Thomas, the look a threat. Then he abruptly eased his stance and spoke in conversational tones. “Those pancakes I smell?” he asked, setting his staff in the corner by the door.