I debated what to do first once we got into the conference room. The recording wasn't going anywhere, and we needed to trade info.

"So who wants to go first?" I asked. Murphy shrugged and held up a hand at me. "Alright, so first bit of news; I think we got two sets of the same story. Ulsharavas said that awakening Murphy's soul set some things in motion for both worlds. She conveniently didn't say what, other than someone called 'The Vagabond' would have to act sooner than anticipated." I was pretty sure that was who had left the message, but I wanted to get everything else out of the way first. "Does that moniker sound familiar, Yang?" she rolled her eyes and shook her head.

"General Ironwood called Torchwick by that name." She set her jaw. "It can't be him: He's dead." I guess we'd find out in a minute or five.

"Alright, we'll move on then. The spirit had a couple of prices for her cooperation." See how I phrased that? It would totally keep my face from getting pushed in, right? "One was easy enough, and I took care of it. It bought us a Sherpa, so we've got a guide to get you home, Yang." I paused for a moment.

"What's the other price, Harry?" Murphy's bullshit meter must be going off. Dammit.

"She said that we'd have to deal with things here. After that, all three of us have to go to Remnant." Murphy didn't exactly glare at me, but I could tell she wasn't happy. "I'm sorry, Karrin – I knew you weren't going to like it," I started. She interrupted me.

"You're right, I don't like it. I might be back in the game, but I don't know how useful I'm going to be."

"I seem to recall you being plenty useful even before you got cool new superpowers, Karrin."

"Yeah, untested and barely trained cool new superpowers." I splayed my hands. "I'll saddle up, you know that. I just hope we aren't biting off more than we can chew. Yang makes their situation sound like a full-fledged war. Do we really have that kind of time?" I shook my head.

"We really don't, but we're going to have to make time." I paused, debating how much to say. "You remember Cat Sith?" Karrin's face lost all expression. We'd talked carefully about what went down last year. It was kind of hard to forget that sort of thing. "Yeah, it's baaack." Yang put up a hand.

"What are you talking about? What's this Cat Sith? Do we have to fight it?" Stars and stones, I hoped not. Even being Mab's new Knight, I'd barely come out of that fight with my spine still attached.

"Probably not, Sparky. The point is that he was infected with something very ugly. It's one of those things I mentioned that we wizards don't discuss openly." The lack of understanding vanished from her face.

"Oh, you mean the things from," she paused, trying to think of the right word.

"Out There," I offered. "The reason we don't talk about it is because it has a variety of ways to listen in on conversations. We're behind a threshold, and I still don't want to talk about it – not in detail, anyway." It was probably safe enough here, but there was no such thing as too careful when it came to the Adversary.

"And when you say it's back, you mean it's here?"

"Ulsharavas said that the Adversary is on Remnant." That caused Karrin to lean forward, and Yang tensed.

"That's not good." Yang's tone was worried. I didn't blame her – I'd actually met the thing and didn't want an encore. Where's the damned Fat Lady already?

"No, it most definitely is not. I can deal with this – it's Mab's charge to keep them out, and by extension my job." Murphy cut a hand flat above the table.

"That's bullshit, Dresden. You don't ask us to hat up and then take all the hard work for yourself." Her voice had dropped into that quiet 'I'm about to kick your ass' tone. "You said last time you barely beat the goddamn thing," Yang gasped and put her hands over her ears, which Murphy ignored. "So don't pull that crap on us now." She crossed her arms and that was final as far as she was concerned. Yang muttered something about wasted A-material.

"Right, sorry." She didn't look satisfied, but said nothing. "Next thing, I have to learn something called 'Whisperwalking', but I need Molly for that." Yang got over her blasphemy shock and spoke up.

"Oh! That was the other thing she…" She trailed off and looked over at Murphy, who shrugged a shoulder and motioned for her to continue. "Molly said she literally couldn't tell you anything." Fuck. I was counting on that, and she had to pull this faerie mystique crap now? "She did say that you had everything you needed." I scowled. What the hell was that supposed to mean? I thought about it for a minute. It wasn't like Molly to hang me out to dry. My brain stumbled for a second, and then I remembered who I was dealing with.

"What did she say, Yang? What were her exact words?" She squeezed her eyes shut to concentrate.

"I literally can't tell him anything right now. He's got everything he needs – he just has to look deeper." Oh. Brain-stumble. OH.

"That bitch!" Yang looked at me as if I'd grown horns.

"That's not a very nice thing to say about your boss, Harry."

"What? Oh, not Molly – The Queen," I waved my hand at her.

"Harry," Murphy drew out my name, resignation coloring her voice. "I'm really starting to fucking hate her, you know?"

"Yeah, get in line. It's pretty long, and we aren't even in cursing distance." Yang looked back and forth between us.

"I feel like such an outsider. What are you two talking about?" Karrin looked at me, eyebrow raised and arms still crossed.

"Powerful Sidhe, like the Queens, can lay a geas – a command on their subjects that cannot be broken. It's a crappy thing to do, in my opinion. I'd bet you my last dollar that Mab is forcing Molly to stay out of this. Again."

"Well that seems stupid. If there's a war on, why handicap your allies like that?" I grunted. She wasn't wrong, and it was more complicated than that at the same time.

"You never can be sure, especially not with the Queens. Sometimes it's for pure spite, or because there's a bigger picture only they can see. Other times it's a subtle game – or a dangerous one, like the thing we were just talking about."

"This doesn't sound like a game, Harry." Nope, it never does. That didn't ever stop the courts from having their fun, though.

"The Sidhe aren't like us. They take their games very seriously, and usually play for blood. The thing about Molly is that she's really good at them. The Sidhe are wicked smart, but they can be outwitted if you know how." I very much doubted that Mab had accidentally left an opening. It smelled like one of her special games. She'd stack the deck against you, but there would always be one or two ways to win. What was crappy about it was that she usually got something out of it either way. "There must have been a loophole for Molly to be able to add that last bit. Now I just have to figure out what it is."

"Can Molly do this geas thing too?" Yang asked. Huh? "She did this thing when we walked in the room – she said my name, and I couldn't move. Everything got all… heavy? It's hard to explain." Hoo boy – I knew exactly what that was. I could only hope that it hadn't been as bad as my own first-hand experience had been.

"What?" Murphy asked. "I didn't know she could do that!" Neither did I.

"When did she let you go?" Yang thought about it for a second.

"Just after Maggie and Mouse left," Murphy supplied. Yang nodded her head in agreement.

"That's Molly for you. She doesn't spend much time alone with Maggie, but when she does, she takes absolutely no chances." That gave me warm fuzzies, but it also illustrated just how much she had changed in her brief time as Winter Lady. Padawan Molls would never have considered doing something like that. The Rag Lady might have, but the Winter Lady? If she'd grown that powerful, I worried what she might be like in ten years, or fifty. Yang took it like a champ, though.

"I get it; she doesn't know me, and she was looking out for your kid. How does it work, though? That could come in handy."

"Everything has a True Name, even people. The short version is that people with power – wizards and Sidhe, but there are others – can speak a True Name with intent and power, which can give them control over the subject. It happened to me once, and it wasn't even my full name. It sucked. A lot." They both looked at me, dying to know. I rolled my eyes. "Let's just say if you ever meet a dragon, be polite, even if they're acting like a huge ass-clown." Their eyes got wide, but Karrin was trying – and failing – to hide a smirk. "You might want to avoid giving your full name to people in the future."

"But I didn't," she said.

"Say what?" I asked. That wasn't how it worked.

"I didn't give her my name. I never got the chance." Well that was… different. They'd never met, so how did Molly manage that? You have to hear a person's True Name from their own lips.

"That's troubling. As far as I know, you have to say it yourself for someone like us before we can use it like that." We were getting way off topic here. We had some time, but I knew we needed every minute. "I don't think we have anything to worry about, but if it happens again, I'll be watching for it. Let's get back to what's in front of us for now. Karrin, did you turn anything up?" She pulled out a manila folder from somewhere behind her.

"I know you've got something else, but it's probably way better than this." She held up the folder and then slid it across the table at me. I picked it up and leafed through the pages inside. Police reports, eyewitness accounts, all to do with muggings over the last several days. Victims were seemingly random. The weird part was what was stolen.

"They took blood? What the hell?" Murphy shrugged, but pointed at it.

"Keep reading," she said. I finished going through it, but I didn't get what she was trying to bring to my attention. I closed the file and held it up.

"What am I supposed to be seeing here?"

"It's what isn't there. No follow-ups." Oh. "Every victim is missing – some unofficially, but the initial cases, nobody can find them. It's like they just up and vanished. No personal belongings missing, vehicles, credit-card use or large cash transfers, nothing." I whistled. There were at least two dozen people on that list. "Could it be some kind of magic voodoo bs?" I chewed on my lip.

"I'd have to try tracking them down, or at least go to the last place they'd been seen. It's weird – and disturbing. Can't rule it out, though. What about the skirmishes?" Murphy shook her head in disgust.

"Almost all of them were with Marcone's people. There was a small-time gang, but they made a big skedaddle." She shrugged. "You said you wanted to avoid talking to Marcone or his people, so that's all we've really turned up." I'd forgotten how frustrating doing actual investigation could be. I blew out a breath; it looked like I'd be doing some tracking spells. "There's nothing on the local Paranet, and Ramirez hadn't heard anything either. He said to tell you he'd try to come if you needed him, but he's got his hands full with the Fomor right now."

"What else is there?" Karrin asked. "I know you like to save the best for last, Harry." Well, there was no arguing with that. I pointed at the phone and rolled my chair as far away as I could.

"Can you call my answering service? You'll want to put the second message on speaker." Karrin dialed the number and put in the codes I gave her. When the message played, Yang's eyes widened and her hands gripped the edge of the table. By the time the recording had finished, her fingers had sunk into the wood. Murphy gave the phone a dark look.

"That sounds charming." Yeah, it was about as charming as a pit of snakes in the Temple of Doom.

"Is it him, Sparky?" I asked.

"How? How can he be back?" The wood of the table actually squealed from the pressure of her fingers digging in. She was frightened and angry. I knew just how she felt, but we didn't have time for this.

"Get ahold of yourself, Yang." My voice was a tad harsher than I'd meant for it to be – even Karrin cringed a little. It did get her attention, though. She let go of the table and winced at the divots her fingers had left behind.

"How can you be so calm?" I felt bad for the kid – she was probably used to her enemies staying dead.

"You get numb to resurrected bad guys after the second or third one."

"I hate your world so much right now." I sympathized with her. Terra Firma could be a mean old lady when she wanted to.

A/N - Sorry this took so long to get out - it suffered many rewrites before I was happy with it. Anyway, we're nearing the end of Act I - three or four chapters. Thanks for sticking with it!