Whatever it was the Dragon told me went in one ear, hit a road block, and was promptly detoured right back out the way it had come by the pounding of my heartbeat, itself running somewhere in the excess of three hundred beats a minute beneath the far-older figure's attention.
If the other Dragon had looked old and worn compared to Ferrovax, this confirmed just how diminished he truly was. I felt like my breath was coming through a straw filled by cement, and the already agonized muscles across my upper body strained further, trying to draw back and away but unable to escape the flesh that bound them in place.
It rated within the top three most miserable experiences in my life, and frankly I'm not so sure Shagnasty's initial glimpse was any worse. Getting pushed around by the deceased-Red King's will, and ending Susan's life only a short time thereafter, fell to a distant third.
Ferrovax gave a self-satisfied smile in my direction before he directed his attention away and turned back to speaking with the other Dragon, and I exhaled so hard in relief that it hurt.
What the hell was I even doing here, honestly? Mab had pointed me indirectly in this direction with her story and Rashid had opened the pathway for me, but was it really where I should have started at? What did I even have to try and barter information with the Dragons for in the first place? The way I had been reacting lately, I was just another enemy invading their territory.
The fact that I had been attacked and held prisoner made sense.
Being led to this point and then scared witless but otherwise left further unmolested did not, and I remembered after another few seconds seeing Ferrovax's lips move but not processing one damn word he had spoken.
Typical. He might have just announced I'm being put into their stew for dinner tonight and I wouldn't have a clue.
I watched the two of them for a short while before the other Dragon took Flight again in the middle of something Ferrovax was still saying, earning a brief flicker of his eyebrows creasing together before his expression smoothed over again. Looking down at the table he picked up a metallic scroll and began perusing it as he talked to me in an almost absent voice.
"I expect you would like a proper meal, then. It is not oft enough a mortal is released from her machinations, and farther still since I had the opportunity of serving one with dinner," he called out.
I grimaced at his choice of words, confused, and caught the hum of dry laughter coming from his throat even at that distance, roughly thirty feet.
"Wizard Rashid has made the payment for your entry, after all, and it would be remiss of me to renege on such an agreement. And now guaranteed as we are that you will behave of your own accordance rather than that of a puppeteer, I welcome you once and once alone to join me at this table," he said.
That sent warning bells jingling around my head like I had stumbled into the middle of Kringle's shop on Christmas Eve. But it also made an unpleasant sort of sense when I tried to process it - I had become a part of Winter, a servant of the Queens. That included both Maeve and, with a shudder I couldn't suppress, Mother Winter. And if they were only tethered to the will of Oberon, than I had been yanked back and forth just like he had said, a puppet obeying the strings. It was the only way to explain the wild malice I had felt toward the Wyvern, and what Mab had said.
I stood up as best I could in light of that. I felt imminently used. Unclean. Someone else was in my head, directing my actions. It was the kind of thing I had feared happening when I had first picked up Lasciel's coin, that I had somehow managed to avoid a second time when Peabody had poisoned most of the White Council and Wardens.
I almost asked him what he meant when he said I was guaranteed not to dance to Oberon's whims again. Instead I thought about it. The Gatekeeper had chastised me for not doing that so far when we were talking. I didn't feel anything untoward against Ferrovax, or the other Dragon, or, looking further, the few Wyverns present. I didn't want to attack. I just felt drained, angry at everything about this situation in general.
"What did you do to me?" I called ahead to him darkly.
Ferrovax ignored the question and continued perusing the scroll in his hands for a few more moments, then he set it aside and picked up another.
I pushed away from the wall and began approaching. My broken, somehow-not-bleeding, maybe-dislocated-still shoulder twinged with every step. I ignored that lesser pain as best I could and walked right up to the table before him. "What did you do to me?" I repeated in the same tone.
In answer, Ferrovax turned his full attention upon me again, and I was reminded of how stupid I was being in disrespecting a force of nature. You don't condescend to a volcano, you get the hell out of dodge when it starts erupting.
My eyes rolled up into the back of my head and I collapsed where I was, blacking out.
When I opened my eyes again, it was to a dim yellow light illuminating a small circle on the ground.
Pacing warily around me was the better-looking doppelganger known as my subconscious, and for the first time in memory he looked about as frazzled as I did. The normally smooth outfit he wore was torn around the sleeves and left shoulder in the same place the Wyvern's fangs had pierced my actual body, his hair was unkempt, and his features were set in a definite grimace. But his stance remained as perfect as ever and his attention focused on me the moment my eyes opened.
"About damn time you answered. I've been trying to contact you ever since the Red Court extinction in Chichén Itzá." He snapped.
I sat up without answering and his nostrils flared.
"Of course, now you choose to be obnoxious." He added in the same tone, "I suppose that it is better this way, so continue to shut up and behave so I can explain what in the name of all hell you think you're doing out there and why it isn't working."
I honestly couldn't recall him acting like this in memory and, as with Mab before, it more or less put me on guard and told me how dire the situation was.
"Unlike you, I was actually paying attention to what happened and was said around us after the Wyvern finished its job. The Dragons used the same technique on you that they tried on Oberon in the ancient past during the short lived war, and unsurprisingly the assault worked. All dealings you have with the Sidhe have been eradicated- do you understand what this means?" he questioned, and then hesitated only long enough to see in my eyes the answer he wanted. "The Winter Knight bargain with Mab isn't the only deal you had with the Sidhe, Dresden! The original deal with the Leanansidhe as a teenager to give you the strength to defeat Justin is no more a part of you." He stated seriously and quietly.
For once I did a double-take.
"Did you-" I began and he cut across, "Yes. You may still have the knowledge, but you lack the might to back it up any further. Even if you were healed on the outside you would die, and quite easily, performing a mere quarter of the stunts with magic that you have managed in the last few years," he explained.
My mouth went dry while he continued. "The only possible benefit from all of this is that Oberon won't have the same sway as he has demonstrated so far - and let me tell you right now that I would prefer to never be subjugated to such a will again, but making it to wherever he is resting right now, let alone resealing him, is impossible as we are," he told me gravely.
"What are I supposed to do about it, then?"
I was shocked, yes. More than a bit terrified again. I was even more crippled now than I had been aboard the Waterbeetle.
And another unsavory detail was that I had no idea how long had passed since entering the Dragon's Domain. He might have known, but for all I knew, it might already be approaching the final stretch.
"Despite these setbacks there is nothing stopping you from making another deal, and indeed I've been over this time and again while watching you go from bad to worse to deservedly defeated." His tone had gathered a note of condescending to it toward the end, and I frowned but didn't answer, pushing up to my feet at last. "The timing of Oberon's release was not a coincidence, Dresden. Someone out there knew when you would be weakest, knew that Mab would choose you for this task, and they knew that you would not refuse it. All of this has been set up according to some mad-scheme and we both know how many wish you dead or worse," he stated with a pointed glare.
I ignored it. If I acknowledged that right now I might just crumble again. "So they broke one of the Laws against meddling with time. Doesn't help me out any," I said.
He countered, "No, but that wasn't the concept that I am trying to drill into your obstinately-thick-skull! Every step taken so far has been done according to their plan, and if they can see far enough ahead to know you would be broken out of Mab's frozen talons, than they would be expecting you to do something remarkably stupid and self-sacrificial in order to put a stop to Oberon. You can't contact the Fae here even if you wanted to, and it would be suicide to try and speak with Mab again after being saturated with the Dragon's presence; your broken connection has no doubt driven her further into insanity regardless."
At that he looked away from my face and over one shoulder without adding anything more. Slowly, and with a great reluctance, I craned my neck and shoulder around to see what had his attention, and there she stood.
Well, stood as best she could with half her form decayed, her tunic scorched around the edges and torn open at others to reveal marred flesh. Her legs were only partially recovered and what remained of the right arm would have turned my stomach under normal circumstances.
"Hello again... my host."
Her voice showed no sign of the obvious pain still left behind by He Who Walks Behind's attack some years ago, and I stared with my mouth agape. She should have been truly dead and gone, but here the shadow of the fallen again Lasciel was once more, and it was at that point that I began to realize what he meant by another deal.
"Lash," I murmured softly after another few seconds of staring.
She managed a partial-smile before shuddering, and a thin layer of flesh crept up over raw and exposed muscle just past the elbow.
"Take up the coin and between the three of us, you will be able to resist the greater temptations that befall other hosts, Dresden. You must have the strength to overcome what lays ahead," he told me in the same soft tone I had addressed her with, coming up to stand at my side. "No one else would expect you to take it. You can stand on your own terms again, defy their overarching reach to destroy you from afar," he paused as Lash gave another weak shudder and more damage was slowly undone. "You've already taken the mantle of Winter Knight to protect your family. The coin is just another conduit of power, Harry. We can control it."
Lash didn't say a word, only watched with saddened eyes as I stood there in silence, and at length I finally gave my response.
"You stand just as much a chance of suffering for this as I do, Lash, so tell me. Just how likely will we all make it through this alive and happy with or without her coin." It was meant as a question, but I just couldn't muster the energy to convey it as anything more than a tired statement.
"We won't, in the long run. But for this time you will have the security you need to endure her presence, a boon of thirty-six hours that we may grant you, my host," she answered slowly and carefully.
"That's all? And what happens after that?"
She tried to shrug and failed. "I perish as an individual once more, absorbed back into her being. Your alter-Id will hold out some hours longer before she truly embraces your subconscious mind."
The three of us fell quiet for a time at that, they awaiting an answer that could quite possibly mean their end if I agreed.
On the other hand was a guaranteed death, no two ways around it.
No Winter Knight power, and Hells bells, not even the strength my godmother had sold me all those years ago? It couldn't be done without something at my back, especially not now that it seemed clear that there was Black Council involvement, and between the three of us I stood a better chance of relinquishing the coin before it was too late.
As if an omen of foreboding, Lasciel's sigil itched against my hand and I scratched at it without thinking.
"Okay." I said in the same flat tone, somehow keeping my tiredness out of it. "Help me call the coin."
Before my eyes even opened up I felt the fingers of my scarred hand clamp down on a small-but-heavy weight pressing into the palm, and a resurgence of the pain that once engulfed it during the firefight against Mavra awoke along every breadth of tissue, of muscle, seemingly carving a pillar of flame straight into the bones beneath.
Somehow I kept the scream contained, probably by way of my jaw being clenched so tightly I heard my back teeth grinding faintly.
When it at length faded away I opened my eyes and looked down with a sharp intake of breath to see my skin was fully healed - no trace of blemish or burn mark was left behind on it except for the same sigil baring Lasciel's name in a faint outline.
Slowly my other hand reached out to trace the design, and another stab of misery erupted from my injured shoulder, but I was able to keep my wits enough to look down and pry my shirt aside to watch and listen in slight disbelief as marrow regenerated and filled in the gaping hole between bone. In moments, the crack of each damaged section setting itself proper again followed, and torn muscle began to pulsate as blood flowed along and stretched out to wrap over the white beneath it. The black edges that had started to decay paled and lightened again before creeping up and meeting in the middle as a whole.
Staring at the display I couldn't help but be impressed, and scared.
That kind of healing should have taken me years of natural recovery, and instead it had been cleaned up as though nothing had ever occurred in the course of a minute and a half. Somewhere in the back of my mind I felt a fleeting sense of satisfaction before it was gone again and I was interrupted from those concerns by a pair of hands slowing clapping.
Instantly I became aware of the surroundings again and all the noise therein, sitting in the formerly-empty throne to Ferrovax's right at that table.
To his left the position of Serenthrax was still without the elder Dragon to it, though several other lesser seats had been gathered around us and filled with fewer successfully-disguised, lowgrade-dragons, and farther away a raised trow had been settled into place with more Wyverns' resting on either side impatiently.
Ferrovax spoke with a firm tone even as his eyes turned to meet mine.
"As I was saying. Welcome to our Domain the Wizard Dresden, who has agreed per choice of seat to fill in for our third greatest member's absence, and in honor of finally stepping out from the bitter grasp of the Fae, let us applaud his presence."
I felt the weight of his being come down on me like an increase in planetary gravity, but unlike the last few times I was able to let my shoulders sag and brace my hands along the throne's armrests and my feet flat against the floor to carry it.
His lips curled upward in imitation of a smile along the edges as a wary clapping came from the dragons nearest, and the Wyverns' hissed entirely in their own tongue, something meant to insult, of what I recognized among the tone and pitch.
When that died down he focused a little more clearly on me and I could feel my back muscles straining to keep upright, but clenching my teeth together I was able to ground out the words, "Thank you," tightly as the sigil on my hand grew more defined.
He nodded his head in satisfaction and turned back to the others, withdrawing half of the weight baring down on me enough that I could lean back against the chair tautly.
What did I just get myself into?
Chapter Four concluded.
