I didn't hear from Lea over the next few days. As time passes differently in Faerie, that really wasn't much of a comfort.

I talked to Bob, but he didn't have much to say. Apparently the Goblin King who recently got married is a separate figure from the Erlkoenig I know, love, and never want to meet again.

"The Erlkoenig's a Summer entity. The Goblin King is different. For one, we're talking different definitions of goblins. For another, we're talking a whole other power source. In his pants." Bob leered. How he leers, I will never know. Or want to know. "He's the King of the Fifth Season."

"Fifth Season?"

"An old German idea," Bob said. "Maybe extends back to pre-Norse. The season of lost, forgotten, or broken things. Things thrown away."

"Any info on the guy personally? Does he have any allies or enemies? How crazy is he?"

Bob gave a disembodied shrug. "You're asking the wrong spirit, Harry. That's pretty much all I know."

It wasn't as un-helpful as it could have been. It just didn't actually help me.


Two days after that, I was reading in my office. The Twilight series, if you must know. I couldn't decide whether to laugh hysterically or be appalled.

"Cold iron, Wizard Dresden?" The voice was smooth, urbane. There was an English softeness to the consonants, an accent the Monty Python nerd in me couldn't place, except 'not Cockney' and 'not Australian'.

"It was to protect the husband," I groused. "I didn't think Irene would really be stupid enough to wave it in Sa - her step-daughter's face as some kind of taunt."

"Lord, what fools these mortals be."

The Sidhe get a lot of mileage out of that one. I decided not to rise to the bait.

Apparently that was the right choice. After a moment, the Goblin King stepped out of shadow. I flashed back to the eighties: bad fantasy movies, big hair, glitter, tight pants. The armor was actually kind of a cool look, in a 'fairytale comics have come to life' sort of way. A ragged cape topped with owl feathers, very pointy shoes that were probably for kicking things that annoyed him.

The hair, though? Half mop, half mullet, all crazy.

"Sarah," the Goblin King said - and he said her name like it was both painful and precious - "is far more than that odious woman's step-daughter. Have you informed that foolish family they are in grave danger of making their own monster?"

"Haven't had the chance yet. But I never meant for the Goblin Queen to be hurt or threatened."

"Only de-clawed." He bared his teeth. They looked sharp. I noticed that the pupil of his left eye was blown, giving him a lopsided, batshit insane sort of look. "And with her… inexperience, de-clawed is dangerous."

I had a premonition of pain.

The Goblin King crossed to stand in front of my desk. He leaned over it, bracing his palms flat on the wood. But the effect was lost: standing at full height, he was shorter than I was. "Do you swear to me that you mean my wife no harm despite any prior acts to the contrary?"

Shit, shit, and double shit.

"I swear," I said carefully, "that my only goal in this case is to make sure Sarah is able to see her brother without accidentally killing her father."

"You accuse her of being a kinslayer?"

I swear there was innuendo in that question. I know there is aboslutely nothing to imply about it, but I stll swear there was innuendo.

"She's a magical being," I said softly. "And he has a pacemaker."

The Goblin King tilted his head. He was wearing eyeshadow. "Pacemaker?"

"A very small, very finicky device we place in the heart to make sure the heart only beats the way it should."

He considered that for a moment, then nodded his head. He gave me a considering look, and yet seemed somehow amused by what he saw.

I'm not sure I'll ever understand how fae think.

"You will not consider this matter concluded," the Goblin King said, pointing at me, "until Sarah is able to see Toby whenever she wishes."

"In exchange for what?" Not a smart idea, but the fae don't like debts. And having a Goblin King who didn't think he owed me was far, far preferable to one who did.

"In exchange," he sneered, "I will not ask you the Goblin Queen's full name… and thus will not be oath-bound to remove you from every possible plane of existence. "


Just because I wasn't supposed to consider the matter concluded didn't mean I would work on it every waking moment. For one, there was no arguing with the kind of self-destructive tendencies Irene Williams was displaying. They were born of fear. For another, I was no longer in her employ. She'd told me as much when she thanked (and paid) me for my attempt at negotiating with Sarah.

So I did some consulting with Karrin Murphy. She's the head of Chicago's SI, Special Investigations.

Funny, to think she and I had been handling the weird together since the same year Sarah had -

Goblin Queen. Goblin Queen, I reminded myself. Best not to call her by name even in my thoughts.

For oncee we weren't handling a murder. Not that the disappearance of a child from its cradle is much better.

What was worse was, the parents insisted they didn't have a second child. CPS records were sure they did, parents were sure they didn't, and their son was surprisingly closemouthed.

"Doesn't make a lick of sense, Dresden," Murphy said as we fled the crime scene.

"No," I agreed.

"Do you have anything?"

I thought for several long, silent moments about what I knew of child-stealers. For one, they usually leave something behind to replace the child - only one child-stealer I know of removes the child entirely and usually even the memory of the child. This one was done almost neatly, with the parents unable to recall and the remaining child refusing to weigh in on one side or the other. Only that tiny piece of Child Protective Services paperwork remained to give any genuine indication that there had ever been an Eliza McPherson.

Not one but two dangerous child-snatchers had been in Chicago in the past three days. At least one of them was probably keeping a sharp eye on me to make sure I stayed the hell out of his way.

But it was the other I suspected. And if it was Sarah, and if Sarah had in fact botched the job the way I thought she had, then neither she nor her husband would appreciate me sticking my nose in. They might fail to appreciate it so much that if I stuck my nose in, I wouldn't be getting my nose back.

It's never pleasant when the debate comes to down to "do what's right" and "do something that is guaranteed not to end in a messy death."

And for the first time in our partnership that I could recall, I considered truly lying to Karrin Murphy.

I didn't. I haven't yet. I don't intend to start.

So I said, "I don't think we can solve this one. Not the way you'd like to."

Murphy stared at me like I'd gone crazy.

"If this was done by the people I think it was done by, they gave somebody in that family the chance to keep the baby." For Sidhe, that was fair play. "Since whoever challenged them lost, they're not going to give the kid up without a fight. A fight I, quite frankly, probably can't win."

"Is there any way to negotiate?"

I almost laughed. I didn't, though. Because yes, I'd heard of bargains made with the Goblin King. I just didn't have anything to trade. Not yet.

"Maybe," I said. "But not now. And by the time I have any leverage, it may be too late."

"Stealing children," Murphy spat. "Can you at least get me in touch with whoever did this?"

The thought of Karrin Murphy - bubbly-looking, blonde, tiny Karrin Murphy - staring down the Goblin King in all his The-Eighties-Called-They-Want-Their-Look-Back menacing glory was too absurd for words. It was a mental image I would cherish until the end of my days.

Or it would have been, if it hadn't scared the bejeezus out of me.

Was I afraid of the Goblin King? Oh yes. And his little Queen too.

I'm still afraid of them. I don't think the idea of confronting them will ever leave me in anything but gibbering terror. I'm pretty sure that's a sign that I'm not crazy or suicidal. I'd have no less a reaction to the thought of fighting Queen Mab or the Erlkoenig.

But summoning to ask questions was not the same as fighting. Especially not by Sidhe standards.

I sighed. "Alright, then I'm going to need a baby's blanket - used by an actual baby and it's best if it was hand-crafted - and a barn owl feather."


I shouldn't have done it. Trust me, I am still kicking myself for not bowing out the minute I heard the words 'Goblin Queen.'

This entire case is a comedy of errors, where we mortals are concerned. I made the mistake of thinking I could help. Murphy made the mistake of thinking mortal law would have any significance in the eyes of a Sidhe.

David and Irene...

I don't know what I'm sorrier for: that I got involved and had to watch them make their mistakes, or that their mistakes cost them so much.

If they had only listened, even once.

I know I tend to lunge around like a bull in a china shop, seeming to make enemies with as little effort as breathing. But I have turned pissing off powerful otherworldly entities into a science as simple as cooking.

Quite frankly, it takes me a hell of a lot less effort to make an enemy for the rest of my mortal life than it does to make an omelette.

But at least I know the difference. Looking back, I'm honestly not sure they did.


I pulled back the carpet in my office and traced lines on the floor in chalk. Normally, I'd do this in my lab, but Murphy wanted the chance to talk to the Sidhe I was about to summon. Best to do it here, away from her threshold and mine.

I poured salt over the circle I'd traced.

After a few moments, I dropped a barn owl feather and Karrin Murphy's own swaddling quilt from her childhood into the center of the circle. I folded the quilt into neat triangles so there'd be enough room in the circle for a man to stand on without standing on the catalysts.

"Goblin King, I wish to speak to you."

Nothing happened.

"I wish to speak to the Goblin King."

Oh, come on. This was getting ridiculous.

"I wish the Goblin King would come here and talk to me right now."

Fog squelched up against the glass of my fifth-story windows. I shivered against a sudden autumnal cold. An odd, nagging sensation itched at the back of my head, like I'd forgotten something.

"Do you really think," drawled the unholy son of glam rock, punk, and Dungeons and Dragons who called himself the Goblin King, "that I have time to be bothered with your foolish mortal questions, Dresden?"

He hadn't actually appeared yet. Part of me wondered how Murphy would react.

I never got the chance to point out that he was here, so apparently he did have the time.

"Eyes off him, Goblin King," said Murphy. "I asked him to call you here."

And then His Glittery Highness was standing in the circle. Yet again he wore the cloak with the white feathers, yet again he wore pants that were frighteningly tight (no lack of confidence in him). His armor was another mixture of eighties glam rock met high fantasy novel, this time in deep blue.

Murphy's reaction was to give him a subtle once-over, an unsubtle second-over, and a blatant stare for a third-over. For a moment, her eyes drifted down and then back up.

"You're a king?!"

"Depending on where you're talking about," he said, tone surprisingly nonchalant, "I'm the King."

The sudden mental image of the Goblin King dressed as Elvis - which, while horrible, was actually sort of fitting considering his habit of manifesting as a medieval rock star - filled my brain. I repressed a shudder and set aside a time in my pencilled-in mental day planner to scrub my brain of that thought.

That was about when I started wanting to hide under my desk. Pity I was too big for it to actually conceal me. And it wasn't even from the absolutely appropriate pants wetting terror (I'm man enough to admit to that). I wanted to hide from the sheer absurdity and the embarrassment, too.

"And you stole Eliza McPherson?"

The Goblin King didn't even hesitate before saying, "I don't usually empty the cradle myself... so no."

"Was she taken on your order?" Murphy's gaze dipped down again before she tried to valiantly to meet the Goblin King's insane, lopsided gaze.

He smirked like the key to her very unmaking had been dropped into his waiting palm. "Oh no, lovely thing. I don't actually steal children. I accept the ones mortals toss away."

I was very, very willing to bet that we hadn't heard a complete answer yet.

"Ask again, Murph," I said.

The Goblin King's eyes flashed to me. I asked, very calmly, "Was Eliza taken on your order?"

"No," he said. "All children are taken at the will of the one who wished them away. That is how this works, Dresden."

Murphy seemed to get what I was going for, because she asked one more time: "Did your subject who emptied the cradle do it on your order?"

The Goblin King hissed. Not, I suspected, because he was revealing anything he didn't want to, but out of contrariness. He didn't like being pinned down and he didn't like being obviously checked to see if he was telling the truth.

"I do not order the thefts of mortal children. I grant the wishes of the mortals who cast their children aside - and as the phrasing of the wish is highly specific..." Here, he trailed off and shrugged. "There are very few mistakes."

"Does everyone get a chance to get their kid back?"

"Only the ones who say they didn't mean it or beg me not to take the child. What's said is said."

"How is that not kidnapping?"

"How is it not adoption?"

"Adoption is done with the parent's consent! It goes through legal channels - "

That was one of the things I loved about Murphy. At the moment it was kind of exasperating, but honestly, I admired it, too. She believed that absolutely no one was ever above the law. Her faith in it was so unshakable, so pure and perfect, that the Pope would have been jealous.

"But they wish their children away to the goblins. They give their children to my keeping, and you say that is not consent?"

"It's not signed, it's not witnessed, it's not thought through! Doesn't law mean anything to you?"

"Which law? Human law, which changes depending on what you call where you stand? Human law, which is passed on paper that crumbles into dust in an eyeblink, for one of my kind?" The Goblin King smiled in an expression that was at once predatory, flirtatious, and smug. "Nothing tra-la-la."

I looked at Murphy. Murphy looked at me. We decided not to ask what the hell 'nothing tra-la-la' meant.

The Goblin King stared first at Murphy, then at me. The flirtatious, predatory smile became a thin snarl. He was baring his teeth at me again.

"I've answered your questions, unless you'd like to waste more of my time? ...which I don't advise."

Murphy blurted, "Is there any way I could trade for Eliza?"

The Goblin King peered at his gloves, smoothing the leather along one of his fingers. "Afraid not, lovely thing. Thirteen hours have passed in the Labyrinth. The child belongs to the fae, now."

"Then no more questions," Murphy said.

"Good." The Goblin King looked at me. "I have been generous, Dresden. But the next time you call on me, the matter of my wife's brother must be concluded to our satisfaction, and I will expect to hear your very right words."

He didn't need to add an 'or else.' He also apparently didn't need to be dismissed in order to vanish from the circle. Quite frankly, it gave me the feeling he'd stayed inside the circle because it had amused him to do so, not because it had bound him.

See what I mean about wishing I'd just stayed the hell out of all this?