"I play on your team," I told her. "I'm not from your town … I'm only human."
Mab's gaze remained on me, cold and heavy as a blanket of snow. "For now." (Skin Game)
…
There's something about the whole Winter Knight gig that I didn't realise when I took it up; it extends your life as well as making you tougher. I guess it doesn't usually have much effect because the Knights generally die in battle before they have much of a chance to live a long life.
I didn't notice initially. Wizards don't age as fast as vanilla mortals, but when I realised that I was aging even slower than that, or to be more accurate, not at all, Mab just smiled. It wasn't a reassuring smile.
Then I remembered what she had said when I had reminded her I was mortal, and on the side of mortals. For now.
I don't think I was ever truly immortal, but something changed.
…
I remember being young. I remember loving with my whole being. I remember watching as Murphy grew old. I remember the day she finally admitted she could no longer fight beside me. She didn't cry, she wasn't like that. I did. I was a stationary, static thing, unable to walk the path beside her. She found other ways to help, other ways to fight. She was our Great War General. Karrin Murphy knew when to give up, and that was never.
God, I loved her.
I love her still, even after all this time. Pathetic, I know.
…
When I sat beside Karrin Murphy's bed as her various organs failed I didn't look a day over forty (besides my scars and other dents) but my mind was much older. It wasn't unusual for a wizard. In fact, for a wizard I was still considered quite young.
But as I sat there, willingly wearing thorn manacles on one arm so the machines that kept Murph (and all the other residents of the hospital) alive could keep on beeping, I felt so old and part of me wished I could slip in beside her and-
Well.
Go to sleep.
I'd found out as I grew up that nearly all wizards had gone through what I was going through now; they just didn't talk about it. It was too painful.
The mind ages at a different rate than the body for a wizard. Even though I looked like a young man I was still eighty years old. I wouldn't love again. Not like I had loved Karrin Murphy.
…
After Murphy died I was lost for a long time. Apart from childhood and my young adulthood, at that point I hadn't had to live without her. She had become vital to my very being. Without my friends I don't know how I would've coped. But I grew older and everyone died, all my short-lived mortal friends who had shone so brightly by my side, even the few wizard friends I had. The only real friend who stuck by me was Thomas, my brother and White Court Vampire, whose life was as unnaturally extended as mine, but he was eventually torn apart by ghouls in one particularly nasty fight. I don't think it was as much an accident as it seemed. He fell apart after Justine died, gave into his Hunger more. Justine was always the one who reminded him he could be human (or something like it) after all.
I don't like to think about it. It's not good for my sanity.
The one that really hit me was Maggie. My sweet little Maggie. She hadn't inherited my powers. It wasn't a surprise; magic is usually passed through the mother, but part of me, a large part, had hoped. And part of me had been afraid; power like mine can be a heavy burden.
She had grown knowing about, but never truly being part of the supernatural community. She had learnt from Karrin how to fight nonetheless; she was my daughter, after all. She was good at it as well, much to my pride (and terror). Unlike her dear Daddy, however, her real power was her brain, she was some kind of tech whiz and she was always creating some kind of … tech thing or other. I tried to understand, I honestly did. She and Butters and Bob could talk about how magic and science interacted for hours on end.
I watched her fall in love. He wrote children's books and made her smile. He was a good man. A man unburdened by demons and death. He didn't fight in the same way I did, but he made the world a better place in his own way.
They lived. They loved. My interactions with them were always sporadic. I had only accrued more enemies over the years and I was still terrified of bringing them down on their heads.
…
I still see their son, my grandson, in Mac's sometimes. He's a minor talent. He doesn't know who I am. He doesn't know that the infamous Harry Dresden, Winter Knight and Black Sheep of the Council is his grandfather. It's safer for him that way.
I didn't understand when Anastasia Luccio explained the pain of watching your family grow up and away from you as you continue on. I almost wish I could go back and apologise for not knowing, not understanding, not feeling her pain.
But I can't. Luccio is dead.
…
After Maggie died I stopped caring. I don't mean I went warlock or anything, I just felt so tired of losing the ones I loved that I didn't want to love anymore. In the greater sense I cared, I still held my morals and my truths, but in the personal sense I shut off.
In essence, I became Winter. Cold. Absolute.
Mab had won her victory, even if she had never won my heart. She could never make me go against my principles, but she had made me into her weapon. Just as she had always known she would. Just as she had known I would become the Winter Knight in the first place, despite my protests.
I hated her, loathed her, even. If I could've locked her in Demonreach without any consequences, I would have in a heartbeat. But some vicious, twisted part of me admired her, worshipped her power, her cunning, her patience. The endless, eternal beauty that was the Winter Queen.
She knew that too.
…
I remembered when Carlos Ramirez became the Merlin of the White Council, the youngest ever to do so. I remembered the laughing Warden who was so sensitive about being a virgin. He wasn't a virgin anymore, not in any sense of the word. His innocence was gone. Carlos had seen many, many things.
We stood opposite each other, discussing politics and the positions of Winter vs. the White Council. I was representing Winter, as always.
It almost felt strange, having a Merlin who actually liked me, although I wondered how much Carlos actually liked me these days, how much he actually recognised me. I didn't much recognise the laughing Warden I had once known. His hair was white and wispy and his eyes…
His eyes.
Sometimes I thought that his eyes smiled like they used to, or maybe it was just a trick of the light. I could never really be sure. That would actually require us to talk like friends and the Winter Knight and the Merlin could never be friends.
…
Over the endless years my magic became stronger, and more importantly, more focused. I used to be known as the thug of the White Council. All power, no flair. Now I was powerful and intelligent.
I mastered ice, fire, earth and water. I fought a hundred wars. I purged the Black Council. I stopped the Fomor. I drove the Outsiders back past the Gates.
I won.
…
My last battle with Nicodemus was a mess. He had tried to destroy the world. Again. And I had stopped him. Again. For once he was as battered and bruised as I was and we lay covered in mud and blood.
I had a grip on his noose.
"This," I growled, "is for Shiro."
He did something unforgivable then. He looked, for a moment, confused, as if struggling to remember who Shiro was. Then he smiled. I howled. His shadows continued to attack me but I knew how to defend myself against them now.
"For Sanya!" I yelled. Smiling Sanya. Sanya had managed to retire and gotten an angel guard like Michael. But the angel guard weren't perfect and they didn't protect you when you were outside the house.
And Butters. Oh God … Butters.
I tightened my grip and the light in Nicodemus' cold eyes began to fade. I thought I had him but he whispered something and I felt an intractable cold wash over me. His death curse, perhaps? Or, as Michael had told me long ago, the Denarians could choose one person to die each year.
Either way I was dead. Somehow, I really didn't mind, so long as I took the bastard with me.
I held on as my arms weakened. I held on until I was absolutely sure he was dead. Then I slumped down and my cheek landed, by what was, of course, complete coincidence, the coin that had recently vacated Nicodemus.
Harry, Anduriel whispered, Harry, you're dying.
Gee, I didn't notice, I 'said' back. Because I can be smartass even when I'm dying. It's a talent.
I can save you Harry. I can give you eternal life. I could give you more power than you could ever dream of.
I could only laugh, You think I want eternal life? You think I want more power? Not a chance in Hell, Andy. Literally.
The coin continued to whisper as I drifted to something like sleep.
It was time to go home.
…
There was a bright light, heavenly music (literally), and the sort of warmth that rushes in after a long time in the cold. Somebody had been reading up on the clichés. I was impressed.
More importantly my friends were there. I started to walk.