January 1070

Things fell back into a rhythm for the next two weeks, broken only by Hogwig coming by with a letter saying the next team meeting would be at my house. Which was good, because there was no way I was leaving town for the next few months. Especially not for the eight to ten day round trip it would take to reach Rowena's tower and come back.

Once the date was tentatively set, I warned Eva and Elfleda that I'd probably have to end up cutting one of their lessons short, and since I didn't know the Ways around Berkhamsted – or really anywhere, for that matter – I couldn't give a better time estimate than that.

They came at around three hours past noon on the last day of the month. They tripped my alarm wards on approach, a fairly simplistic system that detected proximity and power in the town. Berkhamsted was small enough that I could manage that. They then relayed this information to me through a series of candles I had set up – one in the main room, in my bedroom, and one in my laboratory. They shifted through color to denote proximity, and size to denote strength.

The size of the candle-flame that marked my colleagues' approach wasn't the largest I'd ever seen – that had to go to the first time I met Ivy – but it was large enough that I got wary even though I was expecting company.

Taking precautions against attack and making sure that Helga, Rowena, and Salazar actually were Helga, Rowena, and Salazar was… a bit complex, but ultimately everything worked out and we all sat down around my kitchen table.

"Alright. Eva, Elfleda, these are my colleagues Helga, Rowena, and Salazar," I said, gesturing at each of them. Helga and Rowena's nods were friendly and polite, while Salazar's was just polite. "And this is Eva, my apprentice, and Elfleda…" I trailed off when I got to Elfleda, not really sure how to describe her.

"Eva's tutor in everything not related to magic," she supplied.

I could guess Salazar's next question, and it seems like Helga could too because she held a finger up in front of him and furrowed her brow. "Elfleda, Elfleda," she muttered. "Oh, right. She's that practitioner you asked me about her back… six months ago. Thereabouts. When you called me in to help."

I nodded, then turned to meet Elfleda's look and arched eyebrow. "Hey, back then, I had no clue who you were or what you could do," I said.

Elfleda considered that for a moment before humming and nodding.

"Are they to sit in on this meeting?" Salazar asked.

"No. But I figured it wouldn't hurt to introduce everyone," I said.

"Which is a good idea," Helga interjected before Salazar could get another word in, then turned to smile at Eva and Elfleda. "It's nice to meet you. Harry hasn't said much about you. Or at all, in some cases."

"Similarly," Elfleda said.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up suddenly.

"In fact, he's only mentioned you twice," she went on, and my bad-feeling-radar started pinging louder. "Once regarding… whatever happened in York, and once after the… draugr. Speaking of which, which of you got the letter from him after that? I appreciate the stay it bought."

"Oh, that was me," Helga said blindly.

"Ah," Elfleda replied sweetly. "Thank you."

"Okay," I said, my voice a little strained. "We've got work to do now so we'll have to put the rest of this off to tomorrow."

"But we haven't even talked," Helga said.

"Indeed," Elfleda added.

I skipped right past Rowena, who was watching the proceedings with a bemused look, and stared directly at Salazar, pleading with my eyes.

Salazar gave me a disgusted look and then loudly cleared his throat. "Unfortunately, there are sensitive matters we have to discuss right now," he said, glancing sternly at Helga.

No one could've missed the resulting tension, especially with the way Helga sighed and sat back. Elfleda glanced at me and furrowed her brow, and I nodded at her and Eva in return. "I'll see you tomorrow," I said.

Elfleda gave me a long look, then took a deep breath and stood up, Eva mirroring her movements. "It seems we'll have to chat another time," she said to Helga.

Helga nodded minutely, and then Elfleda and Eva left. I didn't put up the wards once they were gone, figuring that might be construed as a potentially hostile action at that point in time.

When I sat back down and faced Helga, Rowena, and Salazar, the positioning struck me as being uncomfortably similar to that of a tribunal.

"Harry, after some discussion, we've concluded that we have some… concerns," Helga said gently.

"They have concerns," Rowena said, finally speaking up. "I have questions."

Helga let out an irritated sigh and side-eyed her friend. Meanwhile, I turned to Salazar and arched an eyebrow, figuring he was the source of most of these concerns. "And they are?"

"The necromancy, the demonology, the demonic figure haunting you under the Sight, your relationship with the Winter Court, and your reluctance to use the Ways," Salazar summarized, then took a deep breath. "Though I will… allow that the last point is less of a concern and more of an issue."

Helga split her side-eyes between me and Salazar for preempting her. I gave her a few seconds to get that out of her system and then leaned back with a sigh.

"Alright. Well, before we get into a point-by-point discussion of those concerns, I'd like to make an opening statement," I said.

Helga nodded, and I scooted my chair back a bit. "Right, one moment, it's kind of unwieldy." I bent down to pick up the fur-bundled package I'd put down beneath the table, and when I got back up I saw Rowena looking at me curiously, Helga looking at me warily, and Salazar having practically drawn his wand. "Here we are." I dumped the five foot long bundle of furs down on the table, where it landed with a clunk. Then I unwrapped the furs to reveal Amoracchius, and lifted it up by the hilt. "I would like to draw everyone's attention to this nail here."

There was a very, very soft tap as Salazar presumably dropped his wand into his robe-sleeve.

Helga frowned and blinked. "And…"

"This is one of the three Nails of the Cross," I said. Then I stopped and blinked. "At least I assume there are just three. I've never actually heard of a fourth one." I glanced at Salazar, but it seemed like he hadn't fully processed things yet. "Anyway, each of the Nails was worked into a sword. Collectively, they're the Swords of the Cross, functionally the most powerful swords in the world, holy or not. Salazar, you want to field this next part?"

"How… how do you have one?!" he asked.

"It was given to me to safeguard," I said, prompting Salazar to start choking.

Helga gave him a worried look. "Salazar? Are you alright?"

Rowena turned her head and gave him a once-over. "He'll be fine. He's just trying to resolve the seeming paradox in his head."

"What paradox?" Helga asked. "Is this some other old age wizard thing?"

"I'm not that much older than you," I said. "And no, more like kind of an obscure supernatural thing. This sword is Amoracchius, the Sword of Love. You might know it better as Excalibur."

Helga instantly shot a wide-eyed look at me.

"Hmm… no, not quite," Rowena said, leaning forward to look it over.

I blinked and turned to look at Rowena. So did Helga and Salazar, who had somewhat recovered by this point.

"Its general style and proportions are similar, but it's larger than the actual Excalibur," Rowena said, having gotten up from her seat and gotten closer by this point. "By a somewhat significant margin. I suspect this was remade in the original Excalibur's image at some later date, perhaps using the original or part of it."

"Huh. I… didn't realize that," I said, correcting what I was about to say. In this day and age, Excalibur hadn't been around that long, so if I seemed familiar with some later potential remix then I was "dating" myself to the past few centuries. "And how do you know that?"

"I have some journals from that era. They describe Excalibur, among other things," Rowena said idly, giving the blade a final once over before returning to her seat.

"You have journals from the time of Camelot," Helga said slowly and flatly.

"Yes."

Helga took a deep breath. "When I asked if you had any deep, dark secrets, you said no."

"Because this was neither deep nor dark. It was just irrelevant."

Helga took another few deep breaths. "I think… that we have strayed from the point. A lot."

"Not necessarily," Rowena said. "I assume you didn't have this before York? I imagine it would've been useful."

"Somewhat. Even with a proper wielder Ursiel's strong enough to beat a Knight," I said. "But yes, I found it in my room after I came back."

"So there it is," Rowena said. "In a sense, that sword is a sign of God's approval."

"That just raises more questions!"

"Enough," Salazar ground out. "The Sword… changes matters, but it doesn't change why we came here." He fixed me with a look. "How much did you tell your paramour about York?"

"She's not my paramour. And the bare minimum, that I went to kill a demonic bear. Didn't name any names, didn't describe any methods," I said, returning the look.

"Hmm. Fine. The necromancy?" he asked.

"You're talking about the draugr, I assume."

"Yes," he said. "You controlled a potent undead practitioner, practically a wizard. That goes far, far beyond crudely animating a fresh corpse; any wizard or witch with a basic understanding of how the sympathetic connections work could accomplish that. What you did requires extensive experience and practice."

"Or to read a book," I said. "Written clearly and concisely by someone with said extensive experience and practice."

Salazar narrowed his eyes. "You mean to say that you learned how to control a draugr through reading about it in a book, without practicing beforehand."

I nodded.

He leaned back. "The only book I am aware of that could possibly have contained that knowledge is the Necronomicon, and if you were at all associated with that book you would already be dead."

"Well it's a good thing I'm not, then," I said. "Look, someone wrote the book. I read the book, once. The book no longer exists, nor does the writer. For what I should hope are very obvious reasons, I'm not going to say more. The kind of necromancy that I read should be forgotten forever, and the only reason I read it in the first place was to learn enough to figure out how to stop a major necromantic threat. Including the draugr, I've used it all of two times, and on neither occasion did I break the Fifth Law."

"That is very vague," he said.

"I'm not making it any clearer," I replied. "I don't do necromancy, I don't plan to do necromancy, and I don't plan to teach necromancy."

Salazar and I had an eadric-off for a full minute. Then he grunted and moved on. "Fine. The demonology."

"Like I said, that was relayed to me. Through multiple parties, some mortal, some not," I said, drumming my fingers against Amoracchius' hilt.

"You mean to say that you were taught some demonic lore by angels?" Salazar asked.

"Yes," I said. There went another fae-ist half-truth. And, well, it was sort of, kind of accurate; Uriel hadn't mentioned much about the Fallen, but he had mentioned a little. "And frankly the fact that I'm holding this sword and actually busted my ass when a Denarian showed up should be proof enough I'm genuine."

"And the demonic mark upon you?" he pressed.

I took a deep breath. "You're going to have to describe that to me."

"A tall, broad, vaguely humanoid creature, an ill-proportioned shadow. Shoulders too wide, arms too long, legs crooked and too thick. It seemed to be scaled or furred or –"

"Stop," I said, wincing as his description dragged up bad memories. "I know what you're talking about." I took a deep breath and wondered how to answer.

Did I say the full truth, that my master had sicced He Who Walks Behind, a damn Walker on me when I was sixteen and had only half a clue what I was doing? That would raise a lot of subsequent questions, questions I couldn't really answer. Questions I just simply didn't know the answer to.

But if I didn't tell the full truth, then what did I leave out?

"I wish that was a demon," I said, letting out a long sigh. "But it's not. It's an Outsider."

Salazar slowly, like three-seconds-long slowly, blinked. "An Outsider."

I let out another sigh, let go of Amoracchius, and leaned back in my seat. "My first master picked me up when I was ten. I spent six years under him learning the Art. He wasn't exactly nice or kind, but… I thought he was fair. Good." I blew out some air. "He was teaching another apprentice alongside me, and one day I came back to my master's home and found that he had bound her and was in the process of turning her into a thrall. He then tried to do the same to me. I fought back, ran. He… I don't know what happened, really. Whether he panicked or called some benefactor, or… something. But before the night was out, he'd summoned an Outsider and sent it after me."

"And you won?" Salazar asked.

"I got very, very lucky, and managed to use the environment against it," I said. "It's not really something I like to dwell on, but the experience marked me." I let out another sigh. "Something I really should've remembered before I basically asked you to use the Sight on me. Though to be fair, you're the one that looked past my hand."

Salazar slightly inclined his head to acknowledge the point. "Your master, and the other apprentice. What happened to them?"

"He burned," I said quietly. "I came back a few weeks later, and he tried to use her against me. We fought and I just…" I shrugged. "I had more power but that's it. He had decades of experience on me and he'd taught me everything. I couldn't afford to get clever. Really, I'm surprised she managed to survive and get away. I only met her again years later, and then briefly. I don't know where she is now or what she's been doing or if she's even alive."

All true, in a sense. It was possible Elaine had died sometime before my confrontation with the Red Court, or in the chaos of the aftermath and the rise of the Fomor. I doubted that, personally, but it was possible. And since I was sure she wasn't around now, I preferred to close off that avenue of questioning.

"So you've killed with magic?" Salazar asked.

I took a deep breath and nodded.

And then the damndest thing happened – rather than tear into me, to any degree, Salazar just looked at me and slowly nodded. It didn't feel approving, more… sympathetic.

The look passed so quickly it was gone just as I noticed it, but it had been there.

"…well," Helga said quietly a few moments later. "That's… I'm sorry."

I shrugged. "It is what it is." I turned back to Salazar. "The Winter Court now?"

He nodded.

I took a deep breath and thought, screw it, in for a penny, in for a pound. "Has Helga told you about me being stuck in the Nevernever for a while?"

"She has," he said.

"Good, so I don't need to explain that bit or answer why you've never heard of me. Now, my mother was involved with the Fae, with Winter specifically. Somehow, I don't know how, she managed to pay a Sidhe enough to be my faerie godmother. After I beat the Outsider and ran off, she showed up."

"Not before?" Rowena asked.

I shook my head. "She was Winter. Offloading my magical education onto someone else while teaching me the virtue of suspicion was viewed as a good thing. Then the Outsider happened. I didn't really know what she was when I ran into her, since my first master hadn't taught me about the Fae, and I was young and panicked so I made a shitty deal. The strength to defeat my master in exchange for... well, essentially, my freedom."

Everyone across from me winced.

"Yeah. I spent the next ten years running from that." I took a deep breath. "Then, one day, the Winter Queen comes before me, and tells me she bought my debt. Then, she makes me an offer I couldn't refuse: I perform three tasks for her, and wipe away the debt." This next part here is why I didn't want to date myself: I didn't know how old Mab really was, but I figured she wasn't that old. "I got through two tasks before I… skipped forward. And now here I am: owing the current Queen a debt of one task."

"And bearing her interest," Salazar said.

"Well, yeah, but I have no clue what that's about. How do you know about that, anyway?"

"For one, Helga and Rowena both told me. But before that, I knew because all of Faerie knows."

I stared at Salazar. "Oh." I gulped. "All of Faerie?"

"Yes."

"Oh."

I really shouldn't have been surprised, but… well, I was.

"Well. That should explain why I don't use the Ways, then," I said. "It's begging for trouble."

"And yet you did in order to get to York," he pointed out.

"That was a one-off emergency that almost got me killed, further reinforcing my desire to stay the hell away," I said.

"Why just the Ways?" Rowena asked. "If Mab wanted you, why is she limiting herself like that?"

I pursed my lips, then sighed. "She wants me to come to her. Sex with her in exchange for access to the Ways."

Rowena arched an eyebrow.

"Hmm." Salazar turned to face Helga. "My other points have been addressed, but this issue remains, and has only been magnified. Our task will be made significantly harder while Dresden is pursued and interdicted like this. The fact we have had to change our system to accommodate him is minor for now, but his inability to quickly react will compound and magnify future issues if we need him."

"Are we making a school, or a team of outriders?" Rowena asked. "His limitation regarding the Ways is inconvenient, but not crippling. And while Hogwarts is entirely theoretical –"

"Please don't use that name," I groaned.

"– the matter of whether he is compromised is irrelevant," Rowena finished.

"Can we not talk about my nonexistent sex life, please?" I asked.

Rowena and Salazar both turned to look at me, but it was Helga who slammed her hands down.

"Alright," she said slowly, her voice artificially calm. "It has been a very crazy day and I have reached my limit. Does anyone have anything related to the school and not Harry to talk about, at all?"

"Yes, actually," Rowena said. "After much experimentation, I've determined that it is possible to insert a spell matrix into a ley line and have it propagate. It is… not a simple process however, and it's one I'll have to handle myself, after we've determined the structure of the matrix."

Helga blinked. "Oh. That's good. That's very good." She took a deep breath. "Are there any risks?"

"If done improperly you could kill yourself and everything for at least a few hundred feet to a few miles around you, depending on the strength of the ley line or nexus you're cutting into," Rowena said. "In other words, the usual risks. Oh, and I suppose you could potentially follow the traces of the matrix back to the source, but that's completely impractical. You would need the power of a god to wade through all those ley lines and magic, and if you're a god you have other means to find the source."

"Could they use that link to more destructive ends?" Helga asked.

"If we somehow were unfortunate enough to be the targets of a god's ire, there are much easier ways they could express that ire than devastating all of the ley lines on the island," Rowena replied.

"That's… reassuring," Helga said. "Now, I… didn't really have anything else planned for this meeting. Did anyone else?"

The response was a round of shaking heads.

"Well. Then, for today, let's try and work on that spell matrix. Rowena, did you bring the notes from last time?"

Rowena nodded and pulled out a small notebook out of her robe, and it took me a few seconds to notice that the book, though small, was way too large to fit that snugly into her robes without some kind of magic.

"Good. So we'll work on that today, and then for the next meeting, which we'll have in… two months, say, I want everyone to come up with an idea regarding how to organize, manage, or make the school. Alright?"

Another round, this time of nods.

"Good," Helga said, nodding herself.

"Before we get into this, Helga, you never got back to me about how to get an owl," I said.

"Oh, right, yes, I didn't, sorry," Helga said. "It's not that hard, really, you just need to buy one. There's a breeder and keeper in this magical enclave in London. I –"

"I was planning on going there come springtime, to pick up more books and supplies," Rowena cut in. "I could take you there if you want."

For some reason, I thought I heard Salazar mutter "Oh God save me from this lunacy" under his breath. But that can't be true, because I don't know Basque.

"I would appreciate that," I said to Rowena. "Now, the notes?"