Epilogue

New Job

Morgan and Carlos arrived at my apartment about an hour after Kai and Irene had left, but before Thomas could make his escape. Not an ideal situation, but the Wardens had already seen him last night. It could only get worse at this point if they found out we were related, and I was pretty sure they had no idea about that yet.

I ignored the looks and invited them in.

Yoshimo had been left behind in the hotel to keep an eye on Luccio. Apparently she was definitely not going to die, although she had a long road back to full fitness ahead of her, as well as adjusting to an entirely different body.

'What happened at the end there?' Carlos asked. He sported a bump on the back of his head the size of a tennis ball. I had to explain to him that this mattered very little, because I had two tennis ball sized bumps to show for last night's outing. I clearly won.

Morgan glowered at me on principle.

'What do you remember?' I asked carefully.

Carlos grinned. 'Riding a Dragon. No blow to the head is going to make me forget that. After that? Nothing.'

Just as well. That meant he didn't remember Bob. Spirits of Intellect were not exactly illegal, but mine had belonged to Kemmler in the past, and the Wardens took a very hard line on anything and anyone involved with him. 'We fought our way to Cowl, and Irene called the lightning down on him at the exact right moment. Then you threw yourself over her to protect her.'

Carlos grinned. 'I'm sure I did it with all the poise and elegance for which I am known,' he said, not very modestly.

I was pretty sure he had saved my bacon a few times in the chaos, so I nodded – and regretted doing that immediately – and agreed that he definitely had.

During this exchange Morgan and Thomas stood on opposite sides of the room, Morgan glaring and Thomas casually leaning against the bookcase, smiling smugly. Apparently Thomas had saved Morgan's life last night – before my arrival – in a very visible, very spectacular fashion. Morgan had not forgiven him for that yet.

It seemed unlikely he ever would.

They left Chicago with almost unseemly haste.

Murphy returned home from Hawaii a few days later. She only stopped briefly at her own house before she was on her way to mine.

'What have you done to my house, Dresden?' she demanded, hands on her hips.

I sat on the couch and did my best to look pathetic so that she would remember that I was injured and she might take pity on me. Not that this was hard. The bumps on my head shrunk, but only very slowly, and my face was in that phase of bruising when the colours are most varied and spectacular. I looked like I had gone for a dozen rounds against an angry boulder.

And I still felt like crap too. Even wizard healing takes time.

Murphy is a police officer, so she is trained to notice such things. 'What happened to you?' she demanded.

I contemplated holding back, but I've done that with Murphy before and it never ended well. So I told her about my interesting days filled with necromancers and Librarians and Dragons. By the end she wanted to examine my head, and it took Thomas to confirm that this had really happened and was not the result of having banged my head one time too many. She also declined to hear my We Are the Champions rendition.

'You're supposed to call him Sir Harry the Dragon Rider now,' Thomas suggested slyly.

Murphy scoffed. 'Not in a million years.' But she smiled and insisted on making the coffee. She even made sure I took my painkillers.

I've said it before, I'll say it again: Murphy is good people.

But I was never allowed to look after her plants again.

She and Thomas both came with me to Hercule's funeral. There were only ashes left to inter – sorry again – but they had placed them in a full-sized coffin that was borne by his colleagues from the library here in Chicago. It was a good turn-out actually. Hercule had been a popular man, and a respected scholar. People had come from all over the country to pay their respects. There was even a friendly tiny old professor from Prague who had made the journey especially.

If I had known Hercule, I was sure I would have liked him. Bad people don't attract the company of so many good ones.

His replacement from the Library was there too, and one or two of her colleagues. Irene and Kai were nowhere to be seen.

Bradamant sought us out afterwards, marching in our direction with a decisiveness that made it feel like a good idea to make a beeline for the exit. But I wasn't all that steady on my feet yet – healing sucks – and she caught us before we made it.

'Good day,' she said briskly.

We returned the greeting. 'How can we help the Library today?' I asked with fake cheer.

She dismissed me, gave Murphy the critical onceover, and then turned to Thomas. 'I have a proposal for you.'

Thomas blinked. 'I'm not getting married to you.'

Murphy snorted and I unsuccessfully tried to disguise my laughter as a coughing fit.

Bradamant bestowed her well-documented contemptuous glare on both of us, before she turned back to Thomas again. 'Not that kind of proposal. I would prefer a little more humanity in a partner.' She got to the point before Thomas could respond to that: 'I want to hire you as my assistant.'

All three of us could only stare at her.

Which suited Bradamant well enough. 'I am new to this world and its factions. I require a consultant to bring me up to speed. I also require someone of your skill to assist me in my missions. You won't be my apprentice, at least not yet, so you won't be required to swear oaths to the Library. I suppose we could draw up a contract if you feel the need.'

Thomas stared at her for a bit, and that doesn't happen often. Most of the time it's people staring at him while he charms them out of their clothes. 'You are offering me a job?'

She looked at him like she thought he was a bit slow. 'Yes,' she said impatiently. 'I am offering you a job. A paid job,' she stressed.

She couldn't know that Thomas's vampiric nature and corresponding appeal made it impossible for him to hold down a job. It's hard to get any work done when the workforce keeps throwing itself at you. Managers and bosses don't like it. Did Bradamant know what she was getting into?

Not that I liked her. From what I had seen of her, she liked to throw her colleagues under the bus to advance her own career. But Thomas had learned plotting and backstabbing at Daddy Raith's knee and would probably give Bradamant a run for her money if the need arose. He was a big boy. He could look after himself.

He took the job.

For the time being he stayed at my place, at least until he had saved up enough to afford his own place. Not that it mattered, because he was barely there anyway. He couldn't tell me much about what he got up to – apparently the Library was really big on keeping everything hush-hush, and Irene had broken all kinds of protocol when she talked about the Library and the Language so openly – but it involved travelling all over the world to collect books.

My vampire half-brother is now a book thief. Life takes strange turns sometimes.

I wasn't banned from Bock Ordered Books for life, which was a bit of a surprise to me after what I had done to the shop. The Library's substantial payment to repair the damage had gone a long way towards softening Bock's anger towards me. But he did promise to do all kinds of damage to me if I did it again and for heaven's sake, could I not do something about that rude young woman who had taken Hercule's place?

Sadly I told him that I couldn't, but, I added slyly, he could always try banning her and see how that turned out.

I didn't see or hear from Kai and Irene again for well over two months. They had warned me that would be the case, so I wasn't worried, not until one very cold, very snowy and very stormy January evening.

When Irene showed up at my door alone.

It was the kind of night I liked to sit in front of the fire with a book. The weather was too bad to go out. Thomas was doing something probably illegal in Japan, so I had the place to myself. Mouse lay down at my feet, while Mister made himself at home in my lap, where he could headbutt my book as and when it pleased him. Outside the wind howled, but inside it was warm and cosy.

Until someone threw a rock at my front door. And, when that wasn't answered immediately, a second and a third bounced off my wards.

No one in their right mind would be outside on a night like this. But Mouse didn't growl or show any sign that this was the kind of visitor I needed to be worried about. I dislodged a loudly complaining Mister from his perch and got up. I still collected my staff and made sure my shield bracelet was ready to go, because perhaps even Mouse could make a mistake every now and then.

But he hadn't.

'Irene.'

She was not dressed for a Chicago winter; she wore a sharp business suit that screamed professional, but that wouldn't have kept her very warm. The nervous tapping of her left foot wouldn't do much good either. There was no coat that I could see. More alarming, she was alone. Last time, she and Kai had been practically joined at the hip. My finely honed wizarding instincts told me something was very wrong here.

I stepped aside to let her in before she froze to death on my doorstep.

'I apologise for showing up unannounced,' she said before I had even closed the door. Her movements were very agitated. 'I didn't know who else to ask.'

When she was here in October, she had done her best to exude cool professionalism at all times. It hadn't always worked, but she had certainly given it her best go.

She didn't even try to pretend calm.

'Sit down,' I invited.

Irene remained standing. Well, pacing.

'What happened?' I asked.

'I need your help.' She finally stopped pacing. 'Kai has been kidnapped.'

The Invisible Files continue in: The Masked Wizard

Starting the 26th of February 2025

If you've made it so far, thank you for sticking with this story! If you've enjoyed it, the sequel is coming in a little over a month.

As for writing progress, at the moment editing on The Masked Wizard is very nearly done. There are a few bits that need a bit more polishing, so I'll be taking care of that before I start uploading. It has a lower chapter count than Book Hunt (prologue, 17 chapters, epilogue) but a higher word count.

Meanwhile I am writing part three of this series. Currently I'm on chapter 13. If I can stick to my current outline, that one will end up around 23 chapters total, excluding the prologue and epilogue. Lots of work to be done on that still. This first version is fairly rough at the moment.

I'm also playing around with some ideas for a fourth instalment (and bravely resisting the urge to throw every unresolved issue from the previous three at it), so this series is far from over.

Reviews would be welcome. See you in a month!