I was very willing to let the Svartalf walk alongside me as I approached the fairy. Ammit seemed convinced that the Svartalf could hold his own, and I'd learned to trust her judgement when it came to the application of violence.

That being said, even though I knew it was insane to think it, it felt absurd to take that degree of precaution in interacting with something so apparently fragile. Ancient didn't even begin to describe the goat-like warrior. Fairies, as a rule, aged much better than their mortal counterparts. This guy looked like a stiff breeze might take him out. For something that had seemed so horrifying only moments ago he just seemed sort of tiny once I wasn't contending with the agony of a spear the length of a city bus bisecting my torso.

Even Thomas towered over the little man. Don't get me wrong, Thomas is an adonis of superhuman perfection but he's only slightly above average height. He just looks taller because he doesn't ever slouch. Vampire freaking posture - there are some benefits that don't make the brochures.

Then again I should say he "would have" towered over the man if he hadn't quicky assisted Kincaid in dragging the unconscious Russians back towards the hotel. Apparently Thomas had the good sense to not be around Summer's heavy hitters, just in case they might be able to see through his disguise. It was for the best, really. If they were even halfway competent they'd at least recognize him as White Court.

I wasn't even remotely surprised when Enlil followed them into the hotel. Enlil's survival instincts were second to none. That he dragged Muminah away from potential danger was equally indicative of his good sense. I suppose, it spoke volumes to either my insanity or Ammits loyalty that she walked with me to meet the fairy. She wore the deeply predatory grin that I knew meant she was holding back laughter at my expense. Sure, Ammit was a murderous, cannibalistic, violent, lunatic, but I really couldn't hope for a better companion for doing something blisteringly foolish… at least since Murphy had stopped being in my life.

I snorted, briefly imagining what would happen if I ever managed to get Murphy and Ammit in the same room. Hell's bells - I don't know if I could survive being that wrong from that many angles at once. They'd either end up killing each other or becoming the best of friends. I didn't know which was scarier.

I didn't realize that I'd started giggling till Ammit asked the question. "Warden? Something on your mind?"

"Just thinking what would happen if you ever met a friend of mine." I replied honestly.

"Warden, I've met the decapitated sum total of your past relationships. And he has no choice." Ammit rolled her eyes. "You haven't even called your current stable of sublords to swear fealty to you. I'll worry about meeting your social circle when we can't all comfortably fit into a Transport Ship."

I blinked. "I have sublords?"

"Technically you currently have a conglomeration of terrified Goa'uld waiting for their inevitable exile or execution." Ammit shrugged. "Given how many of them either didn't come to aid me while I was keeping the gate open or didn't offer Enlil safe passage while he was fleeing Ninlil neither of us have been in a particular hurry to encourage you securing their pledges of loyalty. It never felt like a priority really. It's not as though any of them are mad enough to try to betray you while you can toss them to the mercy of Sun and Snow with a whisper."

"I'm not exactly overwhelmed by the benefit of being allied with either court at the moment." I stopped, scowling at the fairy as it hobbled forward. It moved with the slow deliberation of extreme age, though only a fool would miss the supine grace of the man's movement. It was the movement of an old warrior, deliberate and more than capable of inflicting horrific violence.

"Well, you are the one who bragged about being responsible for the death of the Summer Lady." Ammit shrugged. "That isn't precisely the way to keep your allies."

"Would you have preferred that we all die?" The goat man stopped a good three yards from us, silently standing. He seemed to be waiting for us to come to him.

Screw that. I wasn't on his time. I stopped walking, and held up my arm so that Ammit would do the same. Ammit idly looked from the arm to me and back, clearly considering ripping it off and tossing it into the bushes for having given her a command.

Blessedly she didn't maim me, choosing instead to lean down and say, "What I would prefer is for you to exercise something resembling self preservation when you interact with women, mortal or otherwise," before punching my shoulder hard enough for me to feel it throguh the armor.

I rubbed my shoulder, idly noting that apparently my armor was still entirely intact in spite of how many times I'd been butchered. The magic that reformed me seemed to extend to my clothing as well. Odd - I'd have expected that something as magically intensive as restoring an artefact should have required active effort.

Though, I suppose I might have expected reforming my body to have required the same. Live and learn, I guess.

The four of us stood there an extremely awkward silence as he glared at me with the horde of fairy killers in the background. Their armies massed around the threshold, tiny beasts and beautiful men at the feet of the titanic plague beasts. Ok, I'll admit it - I was a little bit proud that I'd managed to get past all that without dying.

The best course of action would have been to be gracious in victory. But the truth was that both Harry Dresden and the mantle of the Warden were in agreement that we weren't going to give this goat bastard even an inch.

So, of course, I insulted him. It wasn't bright, but damn it felt good.

"Hey there Billy Boy. What brings you to my place?" I grinned at the caprine fariy, enjoying his impotent glare of unadulterated malevolence. He hated me and wasn't even bothering with the pretense of civility that he'd presented to me when he'd been in control only moments before. Insulting him might not have been the most practical course of action under the circumstances, but I screw it the guy had just tried to kill me - his feelings weren't really a priority for me.

The man's hackles bristled, but he stayed deathly silent and stared at me with those alien looking eyes.

I waggled my eyebrows insultingly, looking at Ammit in mock shock. "Crossing the threshold doesn't mute goats does it? If so we really must take that up with the Manager when we meet them."

The Svartalf's eyes narrowed. I raised a hand apologetically, waving off my previous statement. "Sorry, I shouldn't have insulted your spell work. It was more than sufficient to prevent my own entry. I meant no offense to your competence."

The Svartalf said nothing, but his dead eyes seemed to lose their annoyance. Or at least I thought they did - human emotion is hard to attribute to things that aren't human.

I looked back at the goat-man, smiling wickedly. "You see - it's not that hard to apologize when you've made a mistake. I tell you what, you apologize and agree not to keep trying to kidnap, maim, enslave or kill me and I'll promise not to kill you for having tried and failed." I let the mantle into me, expanding my grin to preternaturally manic proportions and bleeding a bit of red lightning out of the fathomless voids of my eyes. "Given how utter your failure was."

Yes, I do know how cartoonish that sounds, but this guy thought I was from the System Lord school of diplomacy. If I negotiated from a more reasonable starting point it would be interpreted as an obvious trap and I really didn't want to have to fight him more. Winters heavy hitters were generally bastards. Summer's guys tended to be alright, at least by fairy standards. Sure, they'd kill you dead but they'd be polite about it.

When the man finally replied to me, it became apparent that his silence hadn't been a strategy. He'd been just to generally blinded by rage to speak. "I want you to tell me why. Why hast thou done this monstrous thing? Why come to this world knowing that we would be able to hunt you with greater ease than anywhere else in the universe. I want to know why? I will still have that answered so that I might one day kill you when my lady tires of her vengeance."

I groaned. "Dude - I've already told you the truth. Aurora's bonkers, nutzo, crazypants, certifiably insane. She stole the Summer Knight's mantle and is planning on using that power to give the power to winter and destroy the world."

"More lies." The fairy's rage roiled as spittle frothed in his jowls. "The Summer Lady could no more betray her nature than any of us. She is Sidhe."

"The warden is not lying." Ammit replied, her voice reverberating with the same quality that it had held when first she'd seen into the truth of my words. I looked at her, wincing at the glowing blood drippping down her face as her eyes shone brightly. "I swear this to you upon the vengance that I am owed - lest I be forced to give up the three who must die. The Warden speaks true."

The fairy's head rocked back as though he'd been slapped, twisting his neck to look at her so fast that I thought he might be in danger of whiplash. He looked as though he might be about to accuse her of similar deception, his lips curling back around caprine teeth. And then, almost suddenly as his rage had arisen, he was a dangerous, deadly calm.

"It was thee who told the Winter Queen what thy were going to do precisely so that she would tell us what thee had done. You wanted her to order her most dangerous warriors to follow and to ban mine own most dangerous warriors from returning to the great battle unless we brought thee with us." He hissed through his teeth, eyes widening in apparent horror. "None of this was an accident - nor was thy presence here, in this place where the Terms were negotiated."

Ammit groaned. "Blood of Apep - the Taint of the Other. She is cursed with the Taint of that which must never be spoken."

"I don't know how or why she has gone insane - only that she has." I replied.

"I will never forgive you for this, Warden. For this monstrous thing that thou hast chosen. I likely will hate thee forever." The Sidhe growled spitefully, his ears twitching back and forth. He looked twice as old as when he'd first chosen to speak. "But I understand. I will do what I can to ensure that mine Queen deals with thee mercifully."

"She's never going to stop hunting me, is she?" I asked. The Queens of Summer and winter were immortal and capable of accomplishing basically anything eventually. If she'd declared that I would be at her mercy, I would eventually be at it. "And she'd going to hurt the people I care about until she does?"

"Yes." The fairy replied, giving the first simple, direct, and deliberate answer I'd ever gotten from one of them without forcing it from them. It meant that it was such an obvious, immutable fact that it didn't merit discussion. "For now, mine Queen is content to hunt thee but the longer this fracas is drawn this out the more it becomes an issue of state. Vengeance is swift, but a threat to sovereignty is to be dealt with overwhelming force. Thine family, children, lands, and even thine subjects might one day meet with the Summer Queen's wroth."

I vividly remembered the Winter Queen destroying entire fleets of ships with a gesture. I wasn't going to be able to run from this. I closed my eyes, counted to ten, and spoke the second most dangerous phrase I knew. "I wish to make a bargain."

"For thy life?" The fairy laughed sadly.

"For my surrender." I replied.

My plan was insane, but I'd given up on smart the moment I'd internally done an inventory of which targets would make the most sense for the Summer Queen to take her vengeance upon if she'd failed to strike me directly. I'd taken her child, so the obvious "balancing" of those scales would be for her to take mine. I had adopted so many kids that it was honestly unfeasible that one of them wouldn't be somewhere that Summer could get to them eventually. In everything but blood I'd become the father to the War Orphans of Nekheb. I would protect my children, that was what a good father was supposed to do.

"Warden!" Ammit snarled. "Have you gone insane?"

"Probably." I had a plan in mind. It was an insane plan that was probably going to doom me to an eternity of agony, but it was something. "I will agree to turn myself in to you - and only you - disarm myself, and come with you to meet with the Summer Queen. In exchange for agreeing that neither I nor any of my retainers will come to any harm, I will agree to become a prisoner of Summer until she and I have reached an agreement for my surrender."

"She well might take an eternity to accept your terms." Ammit snarled. "She does not need to touch you to break you, Warden!"

"Mine Queen did authorize me to take you prisoner… it would be within my purview to agree to this." The fairy hesitated before continuing. "But the Eater of Sin is correct. One need not touch you to destroy what you are."

"She'll agree to my terms." I was more and more convinced of it the more I considered them.

Ammit's eyes narrowed. "What do you know that I don't, Warden?"

"Enough." I smiled enigmatically, looking back at the Fairy. "I will agree to come with you to meet the summer queen under the terms previously spoken, but I will not do it immediately. There is a task I must complete first. I praythee, permit me safe passage to complete this task and I will come with thee to the heart of Summer to meet with your good Queen."

"And what might that Task be?" Inquired the fairy.

"I'm going to go to Buyan and kill Koschei." I replied honestly. "I need Summer to stop trying to kill or capture me till I've accomplished that."

The fairy's alien eyes regarded me in befuddlement. "Wouldst thou not prefer to just surrender thyself to mine Queen? It seems the less painful option."

"He has the Archive. She is under my protection. I will not allow him to keep her." It was the truth, and I was reasonably certain that Summer wouldn't want the geriatric terror to have Ivy any more than I did.

"Ah." The fairy replied, mulling it over. "I will agree to thine terms, with a single condition added."

"Name it." I replied.

"Thou will grant Summer the permission to enter anywhere in thy dominion if thy breaketh the terms of this agreement or stop hunting Koschei for any reason other than his death or thine own. If thee do not willingly surrender thyself to me when thine task is done there will be no corner of thine own dominion where we cannot hunt thee. Our prey will be at the mercy of those who hate thee until such time as we can find thee to take mine Queen's vengeance." The caprine fairy held out his paw. "Agree to this and I will hold up both the word and intended spirit of our pact. I swear this on the Honor of Summer with the Svartalf as the witness to our terms."

"Done." I grabbed the fairy's hand before Ammit had a chance to protest. "I swear that I will keep my word and turn myself in to you if I am still alive to do so."

"Warden!" Ammits screech of rage wasn't language as much a pure atavistic screech of desperate confusion. "You can't!"

"Of course I can, I'm the God of Madness." I felt the shift of power as the bargain was made, letting go of the fairy's hand. "And who knows? I could get lucky and die when we go to Buyan."

"That is not a plan!" Ammit pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration as I watched the army of Summer fairies disappear into a sudden gust of hot desert air, fading away like the shifting sands.

"Trust me Ammit - we were't going to even get out of Cairo with Summer's best at our throats." I shrugged. "I'll sort this out with the Queen when we're done."

"How? What could you possibly offer you that will protect you from her wrath?" Ammit snarled.

"Nothing." I agreed. "I probably can't save me, but I'm pretty sure I can save the rest of you."

Ammit's expression went from rage to abject horror. "Warden?"

"Ammit, doing the right thing isn't about doing the right thing for me specifically. I need to do what is going to save the lives of the people I care about." I smiled sadly. "I've pretty much been living on borrowed time since Sokar's palace.

The goddess was silent for a long time before she spoke. "I think that Enlil and I might have managed to mold you into a worthy ruler if we'd had the time."

"Funny thing, time." I chuckled. "It might be infinite but there never quite seems to be enough of it."

"Sir, Ma'am." The Svartalf interjected, holding a finger up to the side of its head as though it were touching an invisible earpiece. "The Manager is still waiting."

"Of course." Ammit sighed. "Warden, are we good to go or do you have another appointment to doom yourself today that I don't know about?"

"Not that I know of," I followed the goddess as she strode towards the hotel, "But that's never helped me before."