Communication was the tricky part of the whole endeavor.

For very obvious reasons, we couldn't communicate through written means. For any other of his people, that would have meant using a burner phone in a secure location, but my magic made it complicated. I'd foul up any technology he sent with me, using the home phone was out, and even using a payphone was risky with Mr. Dresden's suspicions already raised.

And then, when I'd accompanied my dad to the supermarket later in the week, Jordan had knocked into me, feigning an accident. He'd dropped something into my jacket with all the skill of a master pickpocket and muttered; "Midnight. Wednesday."

My fingers had closed automatically around the smooth, rounded shape, but I didn't draw out the obsidian stone until I was alone.

A speaking stone. Fashioned specifically for mind-to-mind communication. I'd mostly be speaking to Anduriel, while Nicodemus was working other angles. We had our first midnight appointment in the backyard tonight and we'd continue checking in once every day until this whole exercise was complete.

The Carpenter house was still and draped in shadows when I padded downstairs to the kitchen to snatch one of mom's candles from beneath the sink. To my dismay, I found the light on.

My father looked up from his bible in surprise when he saw me lingering in the doorway.

"Molly? What are you doing up?"

Trying to have a clandestine meeting in the treehouse, dad. What are you doing up?

I lifted the book in my right hand, brought just in case someone saw the light in the treehouse.

"I'm going out to the treehouse to get my Potter fix."

Dad frowned at me, placing a cross-stitched bookmark into the seam of the bible before folding it shut.

"Any reason why you can't do that on the couch? It's going to be cold out there, Molls."

Guilt slammed into me with the speed and intensity of a freight train. He wasn't even squinting at me in suspicion, the way Harry did.

Harry had been over a lot more often, keeping an unnervingly close eye on me while he trained Daniel. Apparently I'd missed out on a wiffleball tournament done by the Jawas to perfect Daniel's shielding while shopping for Wheaties with dad. Which meant I'd also missed the gate-crashing assassins from the Summer Court.

I shrugged and dropped my gaze to the floor. My chest felt tight when I uttered the lie.

"It's harder to deal with at night. I feel safer away from people. I lived alone in Belize. Regular exposure to sunlight helps but," I gestured helplessly at the snow-capped world outside the window. "Not much of that to be had during a Chicago winter, right?"

I hated this. I hated leaning on the knowledge that I'd gained during my time with the Fellowship to deceive him. I hated the fact that he seemed to take it all in stride, too relieved, as Harry had said, to see the glaringly obvious truth in front of him. I could kill him. Easily.

I'd already stopped him from doing his job three times, clinging to his arm with wide eyes and a "Please stay?" at the ready. It'd worked every time.

He nodded, obviously saddened but accepting. "Alright. I have some thermal shirts, a bedroll, and a camp stove in the garage. Promise me you'll stay under the covers?"

"Of course."

I was going to hell. If I weren't already, just on principle, due to the Fallen, I was definitely hell-bound now. The truth was going to destroy him. If he ever realized what he'd inadvertently facilitated...

He smiled wearily. "Sit with me for a minute before you go."

I obeyed, taking the seat on his right, even though it was already five minutes past midnight. Anduriel wouldn't be pleased by my tardiness.

Well, if he'd wanted prompt service, he shouldn't have stuck me here, I reasoned. He can wait his damn turn.

"What's up?"

He took my hand gingerly, his somber gray eyes roving over my face.

"Is there something you'd like to tell me?"

I tried to keep my nerves off my face. Was this it? The confrontation? It wasn't anything like how I'd pictured it. Amoracchius wasn't anywhere in sight.

"No," I finally managed. "Why?"

"It's just...a feeling. I can't put my finger on it. But I know you're troubled, Molly. I suppose that's understandable, given what you're going through. But if you need to talk, you know I'm here. I won't judge."

"You wouldn't say that if you knew half of what I've done," I muttered, blinking furiously. I felt like a leaky faucet. Being around my family brought the waterworks with more force than anything else had in years. "I'm not good anymore. I'm not...human."

"Those things are not synonymous, Molly." Then he smiled, squeezed my hand gently in his, and then pressed the other to my cheek. It was a good smile. Bright. Hopeful. "Let me pray for you. Then we'll go out and get you set up in the treehouse."

I let my eyes flutter closed, leaned my face into his hand. Tried to ignore the squirming discomfort of Lasciel in the back of my mind. She knew as well as I that pulling away now as a mistake.

"Precious Father, we fight not against flesh and blood but against spiritual forces of evil. Father of love, protect my daughter against darkness that might seek to harm her. Father of light, protect her from the taint within. Heavenly Father, please guard her from the hands of the wicked and those who seek to ensnare her. May you become her refuge and strength, her very present help in time of trouble."

His voice was steady and soothing. But his hand felt red-hot, and I could feel the power in the air around us. Ancient power. Holy power. And it hurt. Not me. Not physically. But that's the way that Lasciel's consciousness translated it to mine. Screaming emptiness apart from God...

And then her awareness snapped shut, like a door being closed as she fled the room, and I was left panting and alone. I didn't know when I'd begun to cry but I was sobbing when I came back to myself. Sometime I'd curled my legs up to my chest and I'd scooted as far away from his hand as I could get.

"Please stop," I whispered. "I can't..."

Another lie. Red Court infected didn't have the same aversion to faith as the fully-turned. But it was as good a time as any to solidify his wariness of me. I reached for my magic, let the illusion trickle onto my skin. The red-lined tattoos that I'd seen on Thorn, Nixon, and Salem time and time again. I could make out my reflection, distorted in the reflective metal of the fridge. Saw the illusion of my eyes filling with black.

My father drew his hand back but there was no disgust. No judgment. I looked away first, ashamed.

"I love you." Was all he said. "No matter what. Never doubt that."

And then he pushed to his feet and walked to the back door. He let me retrieve a few candles and a sleeve of matches before he opened the door for me.

"Let's get you set up, kiddo," he said with a sad smile. "Hogwarts awaits."

I didn't pick up the sending stone for another hour. Not until the kitchen light had flicked off and my father appeared to be safely in bed. Only now was Lasciel emerging from her hidey-hole in the back of my head. Then I lit the candle, seized the stone, and activated the spellwork within.

Almost immediately the shadows around me began to ripple. Dark tendrils lashed the air around me in frustration and a shape rose from the pooled darkness on the opposite corner. It solidified into the shape of a man. Around the same size as Nicodemus, though thankfully not with his features. For once there seemed to be a face in the shadows. Young, androgynous, and rather pretty.

"You're late." Anduriel's voice wasn't really suited to conveying annoyance, but the body language did most of the work for him.

"My father was up and he wanted to talk. Did you want him following me out here?"

The shadow made a soft sound of censure and then began to pace.

"Report."

Lasciel's image appeared beside me in the treehouse, in the same form she normally projected. Soft, flyaway red hair. Sweet face, but at the moment it was twisted in pique.

"You do not dictate to me, Anduriel. Keep a civil tone before we abandon this exercise."

The pair stood almost nose to nose and the air in the treehouse grew so thick that I could barely draw in breath.

I supposed Anduriel was the one who eventually blinked because he began to move again, still agitated, but less stern with me, at the very least.

"Report. Please."

"Sanya will be in town tomorrow. My father received a call from him. Dresden is being chased by the agents of Summer, but even so, he's keeping an eye on me. He's not convinced by the lies I told. I've been able to keep my father from going out when prompted a few times, but I'm not sure I'll be able to when the parley is set to happen. Dresden will want him there and I doubt he'll stay home, even for me."

Anduriel nodded. "The gains we have already made are enough. Excellent work. If you can detain them further, do so. If not, we will expect your presence at the parley."

"Do we have to do this?" My voice came out small. A little defeated. "I don't understand the purpose. You're going to use the Archive for...what? Nuclear war? Government corruption? To win Battletoads? I don't understand. Why does the world have to end?"

"Why do you need to know? It is enough to understand that it must. And before that, you will secure a more prosperous future for what time remains. It will not be instantaneous."

"But-"

"Has Lasciel not shown you?"

My mind flashed back to the battle in the Nevernever when Lasciel's fury had allowed me a brief peek of her true self and her ideals.

"I...I caught a glimpse once but it almost killed me."

Anduriel sighed, then glanced to where Lasciel stood in her toga once more, arms crossed, energy crackling off of her, looking like she were ready to smite something.

"May I?"

Lasciel considered it. "It would be easier with two, yes. I will block her sight."

Anduriel stepped closer, and his form brushed against my body. I rocked back a step. The illusion felt incredibly real. Heat seemed to pour off of him. His hands felt solid where they brushed my arms.

"Embrace me, child."

"Sounds ominous," I mumbled, trying to take another step back. "Can we do this without cuddling?"

Anduriel's laugh was musical and almost more beautiful than Lasciel's, which I'd thought was impossible.

"It will be over in a moment. Come to me."

I glanced to Lasciel for confirmation. I didn't trust her much these days, but I did trust her sense of self-interest. She'd need me alive to continue her plans. So she at least knew Anduriel wasn't about to kill me.

I took a deep breath and stepped into Anduriel's arms. One shadowy hand braced the small of my back and the other slid into my hair, tangling his fingers into the roots. Pleasant sensation shot through me anywhere we touched. Another illusion, no doubt, but one I didn't want to fight. Then he inclined his head and...

Anduriel kissed me.

It was the closest comparison I could draw. Because it felt like no kiss I'd ever had. True, I'd had only three boyfriends in my whole life. Kissed a total of four people, if I included the vampire I'd thrown myself at. Though I wasn't sure if that was a kiss or a declaration of surrender. I'd had sex with precisely one person. My experience was limited, even by the standards of many humans.

But I knew I'd never felt anything like this before, nor was I likely to ever feel it again. Because the kiss literally transported me to a new realm of being.

Anduriel's shadow lips were warm. He tasted like cosmic dust motes, and I breathed him in until I thought my lungs might actually burst. His energy burned like a young star, and his gravity pulled me inexorably forward. I wanted to back away from him, but there was no place to go. Lasciel at my back, Anduriel at my front, his hands anchoring me in place even as my spirit seemed to lift from my body.

It was pleasure and fear on a completely inhuman plane. I felt like a fragile Dixie cup wedged between the thighs of two giants on a celestial bus ride. Any violent motion would end me. Lasciel wasn't actually letting me see everything that Anduriel was trying to show. It was a projection, a translation for my mortal eyes while she kept one metaphorical hand over my wizard's sight.

And though I'd screwed my eyes shut, I could still see the cosmos. I could see the bright lights of distant angels that outnumbered the stars in our galaxy. Could see the dark black sea beyond the edge of reality, could see things moving inside of it.

"It is our world," Anduriel's voice was too smooth to ever snarl, but that was the sentiment I got. "We will not let them have it."

"I still don't understand how the Archive factors into any of this," I whispered.

"We unmake the world to forge it anew. To purge its weakness. Only the strong will survive the coming war."

I saw it in flashes too fast and too intense to properly encapsulate. The coming fallout was just a drop of nuclear rain in the bucket. We were preparing for the End of Days.

And then I was back in the treehouse. I staggered away from Anduriel, wide-eyed, breathing hard. I was trembling all over. I felt raw. Open. Exposed. Horribly empty when he wasn't touching me. It took precious minutes to collect myself and put up the walls that protected my mind. Lasciel's presence soothed the worst of it, held the gaping nothingness at bay.

"Ah...the parley?" I checked. My voice barely came out as a whisper. "If I can..."

The shadow inclined its head and repeated itself patiently. "If you can detain the Knights, do not attempt contact. But if you cannot, send word to me before joining us. You will likely need to emerge through the waypoint near the Field Museum."

"Got it," I croaked.

My heart didn't stop hammering until the shadows settled and his presence retreated. I dropped the stone onto the floor and just stared at it for a long time. And I didn't close my eyes for long until the pastel sunrise obliterated them entirely. Only then did I sleep.