It took me a good five or six seconds of staring to realize that there was something beneath that beauty that I did not like at all. Her loveliness itself, I realized, was a weapon—such creatures as she had driven men literally insane with desire and obsession. More to the point, I knew that her beauty was only skin-deep. I knew what lurked beneath.
“Thank you, Wizard Cristos,” the duchess said. “It is a very great honor to be received here today in the interests of creating a peace between our two nations, and thereby finally putting an end to the abominable bloodshed between our peoples.”
The Applause Squad started up again as Arianna paused. People picked up on the cue faster this time. Outside of the wizards who stood on the floor beneath the raised stage, the applause was still polite and halfhearted.
I waited until it began to die before I released the door. It closed with a quiet boom precisely in the moment of silence between the end of the applause and the duchess’s next statement.
Nearly a thousand faces turned my way.
Silence fell. I could suddenly hear the little waterfall and the occasional twitter of a bird.
I stared hard at Arianna and said, my voice carrying clearly, “I want the girl, vampire.”
She met my gaze with polite serenity for a moment. Then the hint of a smile touched her face, bringing with it a shadow of mockery. It made my blood boil, and I heard my knuckles pop as they clenched harder at my staff.
“Wizard Dresden!” Cristos said in sharp rebuke. “This is neither the time nor the place for more of your warmongering idiocy.”
I was so impressed with his authority that I raised my voice and said, louder, “Give back the child you took from her family, Arianna Ortega, kidnapper and thief, or face me under the provisions of the Code Duello.”
Murmurs ran through the assembly like a rumble of thunder.
“Wizard Dresden!” Cristos cried, aghast. “This is an ambassador of an Accorded nation, promised safe conduct while she is here on a mission of peace. This is not done!” He looked around the room and pointed a finger at several grey-cloaked wizards standing not too far from me. “Wardens! Escort this man from the chamber!”
I shot a glance at them. They were all old guard, all dangerous, all tough, and they really didn’t like me. Six sets of eyes with all the mercy and pity of a gun’s mouth locked onto me.
I heard Molly gulp.
I looked back at them and said, in English, “You sure you want it to be like this, fellas?”
It must have come out sounding more threatening than I thought it had, because half a dozen White Council hard cases stopped walking. They traded looks with one another.
I turned from them back to the stage, and addressed the vampire. “Well, thief?”
Arianna turned to Cristos and gave him a rather sad and gentle smile. “I’m sorry about this disruption, Wizard Cristos. I’m not sure what this is about, but it’s quite clear that Wizard Dresden feels that he has been badly wronged by my people. Bear in mind that whether justly held or not, his feelings contributed to this war’s beginning.”
“I apologize for this outrageous behavior,” Wizard Cristos said.
“Not at all,” Arianna assured him. “I, too, have suffered personal loss in this conflict. It’s always difficult to control the emotions arising from such things—particularly for the very young. That’s just one of the problems we’ll need to overcome if we are to break the cycle of violence between your folk and mine. The veterans of wars suffer horrible mental and emotional scars, vampires and wizards alike. I take no offense at Wizard Dresden’s words or actions, and do not hold him responsible for them.” She turned to me and said, her voice compassionate, “I can sincerely say that I understand exactly how much pain you’re in right now, Wizard Dresden.”
I had to force myself not to raise my blasting rod and burn that false empathy off of the duchess’s face. I gripped my gear with both hands, to make sure they weren’t going to try anything without consulting me.
“We can never regain the loved ones this war has taken from us,” she continued. “All we can do is end the fighting—before even more of our loved ones get hurt. I’m here to avert any more needless deaths, Dresden. Surely you can see exactly why I would do such a thing.”
Boy, did I. It wasn’t enough for her simply to kill me. She wanted to defeat me utterly first, to have her cake and eat it, too. If she brought the fighting to a close this way, she would garner massive credibility in the supernatural community—and if she did it while simultaneously sticking it to me, it would only be that much more elegant a victory.
She smiled at me again, with that same tiny shading of mockery so faint that no one who wasn’t looking for it could possibly have seen it. It was just enough to make sure that I could see the malice behind it, to make sure that I damned well knew she was rubbing it in my face in front of the entire White Council. She’d probably practiced it in a mirror.
“I’m giving you a chance,” I said, my voice harsh. “Return the child and it ends. We’re quits. Make me take her from you and I’ll play hardball.”
She put long, elegant fingers to her chest, as if confused. “I don’t know why you’re so upset with me, or what I have to do with this child, sir,” Arianna said. “But I understand your outrage. And I wish that I could help you.”
Someone stepped up close to my side, a little in front of me. She was a young woman, not particularly tall, with curling brown hair and a heart-shaped face that was appealing and likable, if not beautiful. Her eyes were steady and hard.
“Harry,” said Anastasia Luccio, captain of the Wardens, “don’t do this. Please.”
I clenched my jaw and spoke in a heated whisper. “Ana, if you knew what she’d done.”
“You are not going to restart the war and tarnish whatever honor the White Council has left by attacking an ambassador visiting under a pledge of safe conduct,” she said evenly. “You’re strong, Dresden. But you aren’t that strong. If you try it, there are at least thirty wizards here who could take you alone. Working together, they wouldn’t just beat you. They’d swat you down like a bug—and then you’d be imprisoned until they decided what to do with you, three or four months from now.”
My belly and chest felt like they were on fire. I looked past Anastasia to Duchess Arianna again.
She was watching me—hell, probably listening to me, too, vampire hearing being what it was. Her smile was a scalpel drawn slowly over my skin.
Anastasia put her hand on my arm—very gently, not firmly. She was making a request. “Harry, please.”
Behind me, Molly added, “This won’t help Maggie, boss.”
I wanted to scream. I wanted to fight.
On the stage one of the hooded figures of the Senior Council reached up and drew back his hood. My old mentor, Ebenezar McCoy, was a stocky old man with broad hands and scarred knuckles, bald except for a faint fringe of pale white hairs. His blunt, strong features were smooth and unreadable, but he met my gaze and gave me a very small, very precise nod. The message was clear. I could practically hear the old man’s voice growling, Trust me, Hoss. Go with her.
I felt my lip lift up from my teeth in a silent snarl.
Then I turned and stalked from the chamber, my work boots thumping heavily on the floor, my staff clenched in my hand. Anastasia walked with me, her hand still on my arm, making it clear that I was being escorted from the room, even if she’d used a gentler persuasion than Cristos would have preferred.
The Wardens closed the door behind me with a soft, solid boom, cutting me off from the assembled might of the White Council.