Chapter Fifty-One #2
“You know what?” I said. “Give him a little time to rest up, and I’ll let him know you want to make him pancakes. Maybe you and he can have a nice breakfast morning sometime soon.”
She looked back at me uncertainly. “You think he’d like that?”
“Can’t think why he wouldn’t,” I said, more confidently than I felt. “Hey, how is Bonea doing?”
Maggie turned to face me, settling down, though she kept an arm around Mouse. “Oh, you know. She’s the smartest person I know and the dumbest person I know at the same time.” She frowned. “Is that mean? To say that?”
“Well,” I said, “you might be able to phrase it a little less harshly. But I can see how it’s basically true. She’s still kind of a baby.”
“Oh my God.” Maggie sighed. “Yeah, she wants little-kid stuff on YouTube, all the time, and then she won’t stop asking me questions about why things don’t match up to Newtonian physics.”
“It’s going to take several years for her to start putting things together,” I said.
“Bob said he was almost forty before he really started understanding the world. But he’s over a thousand now, and I gotta be honest, he still only gets so much, you know?
It’s not his fault. He just has a very different life than someone like you or me. ”
Maggie frowned. “How?”
“He doesn’t have a body,” I said. “Doesn’t age. Doesn’t feel things or experience them the way we do. He doesn’t understand as much about pain, or fear, or being tired, or being hungry. He’s kind of…like Bugs Bunny, you know?”
“Who?” Maggie said.
I sighed and felt old. “A cartoon character whose antics are seen as much less appropriate for children lately.”
“Oh right. What’s up, doc? That guy?”
“That’s the one,” I said.
She frowned. “So even though Bonea knows everything, she doesn’t know anything.”
“Exactly,” I said. “And it’s going to take her a long time to learn. And some things she won’t ever get.”
“She’s a big help when I’m studying sometimes,” Maggie said. “Like, she can check my work in a second and a half.”
“Sure,” I said. “She has access to a lot of information. Just remember that she’s unaware of a lot of things, too.
So the information she does have has to be weighed carefully against what you know, what makes sense, all kinds of stuff like that.
Don’t rely solely on Bonea, even though she really does want to help, and really does mean well.
Look in lots of places. When you look for what’s true, the truth tends to line up over and over, and that’s a good place to start. After that, it gets a lot dicier.”
“That’s…confusing,” Maggie said.
“Welcome to the world, kid,” I said gently.
“My teachers just tell me to follow the textbook.”
“You’re young. That’s probably not a bad way to start.”
“And it gets less confusing?” she said hopefully.
I thought about that one for a minute. “The confusing part gets less scary,” I said.
“Mostly, the answer to lots of questions in your life is going to be ‘I don’t know.’ Don’t be afraid to say that, ever, especially to yourself.
Then you’re free to go look for answers.
Sometimes they’re hard to find. There’s a lot of easy answers and they often aren’t very good ones. But it’s okay to not know things.”
Maggie frowned over that for a minute. “Not on exams.”
I laughed. “That’s just practice for the grown-up stuff. They make it a little easier for you guys.”
Maggie blew out a breath from her lower lip, puffing her hair out of her eyes as she eyed me dubiously. Then she said, “Okay.”
“How about you, Mouse?” I asked. “You still enjoying school?”
“Woof,” Mouse said firmly, thumping his tail on the floor.
“I got him a pencil he can hold in his mouth so he can hit the arrow keys, and he reads books on my laptop,” Maggie said proudly. “He’s reading Narnia now.”
Mouse’s tail thumped on the floor eagerly.
Bear suddenly came on alert from where she’d been leaning on the wall, her bulk balanced.
A moment later, Kyle, one of the Knights of the Bean, showed up.
Food had become more frequent and of better quality, and the folk in the castle had been looking less scrawny and more leanly healthy.
He nodded to Bear as she came to meet him and handed her a square black envelope.
Bear took it, sniffed it, shook it while she listened, and then passed a hand over it muttering something.
She scowled down at it suspiciously and then came over to me.
“Kyle says the folks outside are starting to get rowdy,” she said quietly. “And a courier delivered this a few minutes ago.” She offered me the black envelope.
I took it, frowning. In bright gold ink on the front side, it simply read in a neat, almost artistic hand, H. Dresden.
I closed my eyes for a moment, examining it with my supernatural senses, and found nothing. Apparently, it was just paper and ink.
There was a wax seal on the back. I broke it and opened the envelope. Inside was a single black card, unfolded. There was more writing:
It is my sincere hope that you enjoy your evening.
—Drakul
I flipped the card and showed it to Bear.
Her eyes widened, then narrowed.
“A warning,” I said.
“Apparently,” the Valkyrie agreed.
“How long until sundown?”
Bear drew out a pocket watch, the kind with gears and springs. “Less than half an hour.”
I started to snap orders, then took a moment to think.
Then I said, “Maggie, I want you and Mouse downstairs in my old room.”
“Dad?” she asked, her tone nervous. “What’s going on?”
“Bad guys,” I growled.
I’d had a long damned day. And the Winter mantle rose around me like a coat of cold air.
Someone was coming here?
Looking for trouble?
In my house?
With my daughter here?
“Mouse,” I said, voice hard, “raise the alarm. I want all civilians alerted and moved into the lowest level of the castle.”
Mouse huffed out a growling affirmation, rising to his feet. He guided Maggie’s hand to his collar with gentle teeth and then started trotting for the door.
“Make sure she gets secured,” I told Bear, “then arm up and meet me on the roof.”
“Got it,” Bear said, and stomped rapidly off with Mouse and my daughter.
I heard Mouse begin to bark in steady cadence.
The Temple dog’s power shook the stones of the castle, harmonizing with the energy of the threshold that had been built around the place by a year of weeping, laughing, and living through crisis.
I heard voices being raised as people heard the sound and were drawn out toward it. Bear began shouting instructions.
I closed my eyes for a moment and then called, “Major General?”
There was a zipping sound, then a whipping sound of larger wings, and Major General Toot-Toot Minimus, all three feet of him in his shining new faemetal armor and his dandelion fluff of lavender hair, came soaring into the room, landed in front of me, and saluted. “Reporting for duty!”
I dropped to a knee in front of him. “I need messengers sent out. Tell these people I need them here by sundown, and to come prepared for a fight. Got it?” I fired off a rapid list of names.
“Yes, my lord!” Toot piped, and his dragonfly wings blurred and carried him out of the gym.
“Basil!” I called.
There was a rippling, rumbling sound in one wall, and the large gargoyle appeared, his lion’s head in an expression of sudden wariness. “My lord?”
“I’m expecting danger at sundown. Help the residents into the lowest level and position the Knights to guard the stairwell. Shut and bar the gates. After that, I want you and your people ready to rock.”
“We are always rock,” Basil intoned seriously. But he vanished into the floor as though sinking suddenly into water.
“Bob!” I called.
A bright blue dot appeared on one stone wall of the gym and tracked rapidly around the room to the wall nearest me like someone shining a large laser pointer. “Yeah, boss?”
“You got a handle on the castle’s functions now?”
“Uh…” he said. “I think?”
“Get them spun up,” I snapped.
The spirit had no need to gulp, but he’d learned enough context to make the noise anyway. “Um. Which ones?”
Bad guys coming here.
To my house.
I felt pure rage rising from my bones.
“All of them,” I snarled.