November 1070

It is at this point that I must inform the reader that I am not writing these events, from the start of Samhain on, soon after they happened, as is the case with the rest of my journals. In fact there is a rather significant gap in time between now, when I am writing this, and then, when this happened. The reason for this is that, in the immediate aftermath of the previous revelation, I was not in a state of mind that was remotely close to right or proper. Even now, trying to remember what happened is like looking back on things through a haze. To that end, I apologize if I fail to convey the full magnitude of the rage, betrayal, and despair I felt.

The visual difference between Elfleda and Mab was striking, but not because of any major difference, but through the accumulation of many minor ones. Elfleda had been five-eleven, coming a little short of my chin. Mab was six-four, the top of her head level with my nose. Their eyes were different, Elfleda's being normal, Mab's being slitted like a cat's, but both were a bright green. One was blonde with curly hair, the other platinum-blonde in a long and flowing style. Both were pale but one was paler. But if you sanded away the edges, looked at the broad strokes, then they started to look remarkably similar.

"Harry- " She'd pushed herself up, tried to speak, her voice no longer Elfleda's but Mab's, but I wasn't having any of it.

"Stop," I said, my voice, my arms, my entire body shaking with anger and confusion and fear. "It was you all along, wasn't it? You were the one that drove Tim to explore. You're the reason I ran into him. You're the reason... you're the reason I came here, aren't you?"

Mab didn't respond. She just continued to stare at me, and had the gall to look sad.

"Answer me!" I yelled.

"Yes," she said.

I staggered as if punched. I felt sick, on the verge of throwing up. "Oh God. Oh God. I told you everything. I gave Eva to you. What the hell have I done?"

"Your apprentice is not mine," she said.

"What the hell does that even mean?" I snarled. "That you sold her?"

"That I had not the time to look after and teach and guide her," she replied. "Thus I devolved the responsibility to the changeling I arranged and charged to act in my stead, as I devolved many other responsibilities, as I took on a number of hers."

"Because that's better. Pass her from the care of one deceiver into another." I ran a hand through my hair. "How much of it was you? How much was you and how much was... the changeling? God, is Elfleda even her name?"

"It is," she said. "Elfleda acted the part at court, when traveling, on rare occasions in this home: the first time, the time you returned from Cornwall. For the most part, when I expected to see you, when Elfleda expected to see you, then it was me."

"So at least that small part wasn't a lie," I growled.

"I never lied to you, Harry-"

"What the hell do you call all this, then?" I yelled, gesturing wildly with one hand. "Huh?! What the hell can you call this entire relationship besides a lie, a sham!" I laughed bitterly and mirthlessly. "God, now it all makes sense, why you never seemed to put any effort into going after me. Why bother, when your grotesque masquerade was working well enough?"

"I'm sorry."

"Oh, you're sorry are you? Oh, I suppose that just makes it alright then, I'm supposed to just forget about the fact that you raped me!" I yelled.

Mab furrowed her brow in incomprehension. "In what sense?" she asked.

I stared at her. "In what sense... you violated my mind! You made me forget having sex with you in order to continue this absurd... thing between us!"

"You enjoyed it," she said, sounding honestly confused.

"Like that justifies things," I said. Then I paused, ground my teeth together, and took a deep breath. "How many other times have you screwed with my mind, forced me to remember what you wanted, lead me along like a dog on a leash?"

"Never before tonight," she said. "And I have no interest in a dog, leashed or not."

"Is that so," I said, unconvinced. "You staged a real dog and pony show back there with your handmaiden. I bet you were planning on laughing all about it with the Leanansidhe later."

Mab's eyes flashed with irritation and anger, and I went on. "Look, I get it. You're sidhe, the Queen of Winter, the incarnation of cold cruelty. You don't think this is a big deal. Fine. But before I decide what to do with you, I just have one question for you: do you love me?"

My voice had gotten quieter and quiter as I spoke, until that last question came out in a bare whisper. Mab heard it all the same. The anger in her eyes cooled and faded, and her expression grew flat. She didn't respond.

"Well?" I demanded. "It's a simple yes or no question."

I waited, and waited. I don't know what for; I'm not sure what response I wanted, what answer. But she didn't say anything.

I scoffed and looked away, running a hand through my hair. "Of course. What did I expect." I took a deep breath. "You can make one last request of me. Name one final task. Get it over with. And once that's done and this mistake's behind us, I want you to get the hell out of my life, and Eva's."

"That is her decision to make," she said. "And I do not have a task in mind for you at this time."

I snapped my hand out to the side and called my sword, tearing it free of the rime coating and swinging it around to point right at Mab's breast, right over her heart. "Then reconsider," I snarled.

Mab blinked and looked upon the sword with faint surprise. "You are... coercing me?" she asked in a kind of wondering, novel tone.

"Yeah," I said. "I am. Deal doesn't say anything about that."

Mab pursed her lips and sighed. My arm, which had been shaking with fury up to this point, completely stilled as she willed it to stop moving. She started to sit up, and said, "Harry, idle threats do not become you-"

She cut off sharply as I fashioned a pair of hand constructs out of soulfire, one to force open my own hand, the other to grasp my sword by the crossguard and move it until the tip was just above the skin of her breast.

"It's Samhain," I whispered.

Mab stilled.

"Did you think I was bluffing, when I threatened the Leanansidhe?" I continued in that same, quiet tone. "No. I may not have been entirely certain how well I could manage it, but I damn well knew I could damage her power, destroy it. Just like I know I can kill you. And you walked into my house without an invitation. You left most of your power at the door. You can't stop me. So again, I suggest you reconsider."

And then Mab did something utterly incongruous: she took a deep breath. Her chest swelled with air. And she winced, as the smell of sizzling flesh filled the room.

I frowned, confused for a moment, and looked down at my sword, and at first, and for a while, it didn't make sense to me why Mab's flesh was burning. It took me a minute to realize that it wasn't my sword, wasn't Snickers. It was Amoracchius. I blinked and looked around the room, wondering how that had happened. The scenario seemed so similar to that dream, to that nightmare when Mab appeared, that I had just assumed that my sword was there, to be called upon. But it wasn't; it was downstairs, just by the door to the foyer.

"You won't use that blade against me," Mab said, frozen mulberry lips twitching with pain. "You can't."

I looked down the length of Amoracchius, to the point where the Nail had been driven in, and stared at it. Then, I slowly looked up to meet Mab's gaze, my expression utterly devoid of mercy.

Were I in a better place, mentally, maybe I would have listened to her. But I wasn't. I was angry and unbalanced and it was all aimed at her. I'd picked up a sword to threaten her, to force out the final task, and at that point, in my mind, that sword was the only thing standing between me and whatever Mab wanted to do to me.

It didn't matter that I ended up drawing the wrong sword. I didn't care or even think about the consequences in that moment. I just wanted the nightmare to be over.

"Can't I?" I asked calmly. "Regardless of whatever happens to it, it's steel. And you are not an innocent, far from it."

And for a single, terrible moment, I thought of just willing the one construct forward. Of punching through the forming burn-scar and cutting out her heart. Of just... ending it.

I really, really wanted to.

The sword started to inch forward, and then someone kicked me in the head. Not literally, but it definitely felt like it. My vision swam, my ears rang, and my control slipped, my hand constructs freezing in place as the will that drove it was temporarily disrupted. I staggered, pained, disoriented, and brought my other hand up to my head as one of the worst migraines I'd ever experienced pounded and paraded its way through my skull. But then it started fading, my vision started resolving, my ears stopped ringing, and my hand constructs were still there, keeping my hand open and holding Amoracchius to Mab's breast.

I wetted my lips. "Last chance," I whispered.

Mab closed her eyes and stayed that way for a minute, her breathing quiet and shallow. When she opened her eyes again she glanced down at her body, past the necklace she was still fucking wearing, at the point where Amoracchius had been pressing into her flesh. Then she looked back at me and slowly waved a hand. "May I?"

"What are you going to do?" I asked.

"Produce a document, nothing more," she said.

I stared at her for a few seconds, then moved Amoracchius back over the scar and nodded. She flicked her hand out, and ice and snow shot out, coalescing into a large, heavy book with silver embroidery and detailing on all sides. She grasped the book by its spine and turned it around so I could see the cover. There, just to the left of Mab's thumb, was the title. It read, THE UNSEELIE ACCORDS.

I frowned. The Unseelie Accords were a recent creation in my time, even by regular human standards of time, written in the aftermath of the 1994 Unseelie incursion. They were based on older principles that guided interaction between the various supernatural nations, so there was some continuity, but that was the thing: based on. As far as I knew, there hadn't been a first version of the Unseelie Accords, especially not one dating to medieval times.

Except, evidently, something had changed. And I didn't have the slightest clue what.

"Okay...?" I asked. "What do you want me to do with that?"

"Various groups, including your Council, have agreed to sign, establish, and follow these Accords," Mab said. "But some are yet holding out, and some have gone further and wholly rejected the notion. Have insulted me. This is the White King's copy."

I shot a second glance at the huge, encyclopedic tome. The book then opened and blurred into motion, dozens and hundreds of pages flickering past before landing on the very last one, where there was space to sign and apply a seal. The space was empty.

"To be clear: you want me to make the White King, the sovereign of the White Court, sign your Accords?" I asked.

"Precisely."

"Okay. How am I to manage that?" I asked.

Mab furrowed her brow. "Whatever do you mean?"

"I'm not in the mood to run around figuring things out," I said. "I want to know where he is, or where he's going to be, and how to get to him."

"Presently, he is at the estate of one Gauthier Renouth," Mab said.

I narrowed my eyes. "He's not Gauthier himself, is he?"

"No, Gauthier is not the Lord Raith," she replied. "Gauthier has called a summit of the White Court. Members have been trickling in for some time now, but it was meant to begin tomorrow night. Doubtless he wished to display you or your corpse as a sign of strength, to quiet rumors of his demise or fall. Now, he will try and secure support for his vendetta against you."

"Let me get this straight: you want me to walk into a meeting of the White Court, a congregation of dozens, perhaps scores of vampires, and get their King to sign an agreement he doesn't want to sign. Is that what you're saying?"

"Yes."

"Great. And how am I supposed to get to Gauthier's estate in time for this, exactly?" I asked. "Or at all?"

"The Renouth twins can guide you through the Ways," she said. "Or you can find your own way. Or you may choose to pursue the White King on your own time. But as you already seek vengeance against Gauthier, and demand a task, I consider this an expedient combination."

I considered her offer. It was ludicrous, on the face of it, but it fit in with me, with us, getting revenge on Gauthier. Helga and Rowena and Salazar would be coming along - and Salazar was the big one in that instance. He was still holding a torch for his wife decades after her death, and he had a basilisk; as big guns went there were few bigger. And even better, he'd be immune to the White King's "charms", to the Lord Raith. And if we got the King to sign the Accords, to agree to something the Council wanted, we could get Edinburgh. We could get recognition and support. We could finally go ahead.

And Mab knew that, damn it, because I'd trusted her and told her.

"Put the book down," I said. "And swear that you'll stay the hell away from Eva."

Mab released the book containing the Accords, and it gently floated down and settled against the floor. She then looked down at the tip of Amoracchius, staring at it silently for a while, weighing it, considering it. Finally, she said, "I shall not involve myself, or my court, in Eva's life. Is that satisfactory?"

"Yeah," I said. "I accept your request." I pulled Amoracchius back a few inches, until its hilt sat comfortably in my open, frozen hand. "Now get the hell out of my house, and don't come back. In fact, don't come back at all, ever, wherever I end up living or going; I never want to see you again."

Mab looked upon me with a frozen, dull expression and glimmering, sad eyes. Then she dissolved into air and darkness, and was sucked out through the small gap in my window.

After she was gone, I stood there for I don't know how long. I know I dismissed the constructs, and physically grasped Amoracchius again, but the when of that is murky. What I remember most of all though, is that all of a sudden, I threw Amoracchius aside and screamed.

Author's Note: A reminder for all, before you start. The conceit of the vast majority of this story is that Harry is writing it post-facto. That means he has to live to write it, has to get to the point mentally and emotionally where he feels he can write about it. Things are going to get better in a matter of parts, by the New Year. But before then things are going to get worse. That's sort of inherently how a climax works, how it resolves itself.