Proven Guilty

by Jim Butcher

Chapter 41

  Chapter Forty-one

  Father Forthill received us in his typical fashion: with warmth, welcome, compassion, and food. At first, Thomas was going to remain outside Saint Mary's, but I clamped my hand onto the front of his mail and dragged him unceremoniously inside with me. He could have gotten loose, of course, so I knew he didn't really much mind. He growled and snapped at me halfheartedly, but nodded cautiously to Forthill when I introduced him. Then my brother stepped out into the hall and did his unobtrusive-wall-hanging act.

  The Carpenter kids were sound asleep when we came in, but the noise made one of them stir, and little Harry opened his eyes, blinked sleepily, then let out a shriek of delight when he saw his mother. The sound wakened the other kids, and everyone assaulted Charity and Molly with happy shouts and hugs and kisses.

  I watched the reunion from a chair across the room, and dozed sitting up until Forthill returned with food. There weren't chairs enough for everyone, and Charity wound up sitting on the floor with her back to the wall, chomping down sandwiches while her children all tried to remain within touching distance.

  I stuffed my face shamelessly. The use of magic, the excitement, and that final uphill hike through the cold had left my stomach on the verge of implosion. "Survival food," I muttered. "Nothing like it. "

  Murphy, leaning against the wall beside me, nodded. "Damn right. " She wiped at her mouth and looked at her watch. She tucked the last of her sandwich between her lips, and then started resetting the watch while she chewed.

  "Gone almost exactly twenty-four hours. So we did some kind of time travel?" she asked.

  "Oh, God no," I said. "That's on the list of Things One Does Not Do. It's one of the seven Laws of Magic. "

  "Maybe," she said. "But however it happened, a whole day just went poof. That's time travel. "

  "People are doing that kind of time travel all the time," I said. "We just pulled into the passing lane for a while. "

  She finished setting the watch and grimaced. "All the same. "

  I frowned at her. "You okay?"

  She looked up at the children and their mother. "I'm going to have one hell of a time explaining where I've been for the past twenty-four hours. It isn't as though I can tell my boss that I went time traveling. "

  "Yeah, he'd never buy it. Tell him you invaded Faerieland to rescue a young woman from a monster-infested castle. "

  "Of course," she said. "Why didn't I think of that?"

  I grunted. "Is it going to make trouble for you?"

  She frowned for a moment and then said, "Intradepartmental discipline, probably. They couldn't get me for anything criminal, so no jail. "

  I blinked. "Jail?"

  "I was in charge of things, remember?" Murphy reminded me. "I was pushing the line by laying that aside and coming to help you. Throw in that extra day and. . . " She shrugged.

  "Hell's bells," I sighed. "I hadn't realized. "

  She shrugged a shoulder.

  "How bad is it going to be?" I asked.

  She frowned. "Depends on a lot of things. Mostly what Greene and Rick have to say, and how they say it. What other cops who were there have to say. A couple of those guys are major assholes. They'd be glad to make trouble for me. "

  "Like Rudolph," I said.

  "Like Rudolph. "

  I put on my Bronx accent. "You want I should whack 'em for ya?"

  She gave me a quick, ghostly smile. "Better let me sleep on that one. "

  I nodded. "But seriously. If there's anything I can do. . . "

  "Just keep your head down for a while. You aren't exactly well loved all over the department. There are some people who resent that I keep hiring you, and that they can't tell me to stop because the cases you're on have about a ninety percent likelihood of resolution. "

  "My effectiveness is irrelevant? I thought cops had to have a degree or something, these days. "

  She snorted. "I love my job," she said. "But sometimes it feels like it has an unnecessarily high moron factor. "

  I nodded agreement. "What are they going to do?"

  "This will be my first official fuckup," she said. "If I handle it correctly, I don't think they'll fire me. "

  "But?" I asked.

  She pushed some hair back from her eyes. "They'll shove lots of fan counseling and psychological evaluation down my throat. "

  I tried to imagine Murphy on a therapist's couch.

  My brain almost exploded out my ears.

  "They'll try every trick they can to convince me to leave," she continued. "And when I don't, they'll demote me. I'll lose SI. "

  A lead weight landed on the bottom of my stomach. "Murph," I said.

  She tried to smile but failed. She just looked sickly and strained. "It isn't anyone's fault, Harry. Just the nature of the beast. It had to be done, and I'd do it again. I can live with that. "

  Her tone was calm, relaxed, but she was too tired to make it sound genuine. Murphy's command might have been a tricky, frustrating, ugly one, but it was hers. She'd fought for her rank, worked her ass off to get it, and then she got shunted into SI. Only instead of accepting banishment to departmental Siberia, she'd worked even harder to throw it back into the faces of the people who had sent her there.

  "It isn't fair," I growled.

  "What is?" she asked.

  "Bah. One of these days I'm going to go downtown and summon up a swarm of roaches or something. Just to watch the suits run out of the building, screaming. "

  This time, her smile was wired a little tight. "That won't help me. "

  "Are you kidding? We could sit outside and take pictures as they came running out and laugh ourselves sick. "

  "And that helps how?"

  "Laughter is good for you," I said. "Nine out of ten stand-up comedians recommend laughter in the face of intense stupidity. "

  She let out a tired, quiet chuckle. "Let me sleep on that one, too. " She pushed away from the wall, drawing her keys from her pocket. "I've got an appointment with the spin doctor," she said. "You want a ride home?"

  I shook my head. "Few things I want to do first. Thanks, though. "

  She nodded and turned to go. Then she paused. "Harry," she said quiedy.

  "Hmm?"

  "What I said in the elevator. "

  I swallowed. "Yeah?"

  "I didn't mean it to come out so harsh. You're a good man. Someone I'm damned proud to call my friend. But I care too much about you to lie to you or lead you on. "

  "It's no one's fault," I said quietly. "You had to be honest with me. I can live with that. "

  One corner of her mouth quirked into a wry half grin. "What are friends for?"

  I sensed a change in tone as she asked the question, a very faint interrogative.

  I stood up and put my hand on her shoulder. "I'm your friend. That won't change, Karrin. Ever. "

  She nodded, blinking several times, and for a moment rested her hand on mine. Then she turned to leave. Just then, Thomas poked his head in from the hallway. "Harry, Karrin. You leaving?"

  "I am," she said.

  Thomas glanced at me. "Uh-huh. Think I can bum a ride?"

  Her car keys rattled. "Sure," she said.

  "Thanks. " He nodded to me. "Thank you for another field trip, Harry. Kind of bland, though. Maybe next time we should bring some coffee or something, so we don't yawn ourselves to death. "

  "Beat it before I kick your whining ass," I said.

  Thomas sneered at me in reply, and he and Murphy left.

  I ate the rest of my sandwich, idly noting that I had reached one of those odd little mental moments where I felt too tired to go to sleep. Across the room, Charity and her children had all fallen asleep where she sat on the floor, the children all leaning upon their mother and each other like living pillows. Charity looked exhausted, naturally, and I could see care lines on her face that I'd never really noticed before.

  She could
be a pain in the ass, but she was one gutsy chick. Her kids were lucky to have a mother like her. A lot of moms would say that they would die for their children. Charity had placed herself squarely in harm's way to do exactly that.

  I regarded the kids for a moment, mostly very young children's faces, relaxed in sleep. Children whose world had been founded in something as solid as Charity's love for them would be able to do almost anything. Between her and her husband, they could be raising an entire generation of men and women with the same kind of power, selflessness, and courage.

  I'm a pessimist of the human condition, as a rule, but contemplating the future and how the Carpenter kids could contribute to it was the kind of thought that gave me hope for us all, despite myself.

  Of course, I suppose someone must once have looked down upon young Lucifer and considered what tremendous potential he contained.

  As that unsettling thought went through my head, Molly shifted herself out from under her mother's arm, removed her leg very gently from beneath a little brother's ear, and extracted herself from the slumbering dogpile. She moved quietly for the exit until she glanced up, saw me watching her, and froze for half a step.

  "You're awake," she whispered.

  "Too tired to sleep," I said. "Where are you going?"

  She rubbed her hands on her torn skirts and avoided my eyes. "I. . . what I put them through. I thought it would be better if I just. . . "

  "Left?" I asked.

  She shrugged a shoulder, and didn't lift her eyes. "It won't work. Me staying at home. "

  "Why not?" I asked.

  She shook her head tiredly. "It just won't. Not anymore. " She walked out past me.

  I moved my right hand smoothly, gripping her hand at the wrist, skin-to-skin contact that conducted the quivering, tingling aura of power of a practitioner of the Art up through my arm. She'd avoided direct contact before, though I hadn't had a reason to think she would at the time.

  She froze, staring at my face, as she felt the same presence of power in my own hand.

  "You can't stay because of your magic. That's what you mean. "

  She swallowed. "How. . . how did you know?. . . "

  "I'm a wizard, kid. Give me some credit. "

  She folded her arms beneath her breasts, her shoulders hunched. "I should g-go. . . "

  I stood up. "Yeah, you should. We need to talk. "

  She bit her lip and looked up at me. "What do you mean?"

  "I mean you've got some tough choices to make, Molly. You've got the power. You're going to have to figure out whether you want to use it. Or whether you're going to let it use you. " I gestured with a hand for her to accompany me and walked out, slowly. We weren't going anywhere. What was important was the walk. She kept pace with me, her body language as closed and defensive as you please.

  "When did it start for you?" I asked her quietly.

  She chewed her lip. She said nothing.

  Maybe I had to give a little to get a little. "It's always like that for people like us. Something happens, almost like it's all by itself, the first time the magic bubbles over. It's usually something small and silly. My first time. . . " I smiled. "Oh, man. I haven't thought about that in a while. " I mused for a moment, thinking. "It was maybe two weeks before Justin adopted me," I said. "I was in school, and small. All elbows and ears. Hadn't hit my growth spurt yet, and it was spring, and we were having this school Olympics. Field day, you know? And I was entered in the running long jump. " I grinned. "Man, I wanted to win it. I'd lost every other event to a couple of guys who liked to give me a hard time. So I ran down the blacktop and jumped as hard as I could, yelling the whole time. " I shook my head. "Must have looked silly. But when I shouted and jumped, some of the power rolled out of me and threw me about ten feet farther than I should have been able to jump. I landed badly, of course. Sprained my wrist. But I won this little blue ribbon. I still have it back at home. "

  Molly looked up at me with a little ghost of a smile. "I can't imagine you being smaller than average. "

  "Everyone's little sometime," I said.

  "Were you shy, too?"

  "Not as much as I should have been. I had this problem where I gave a lot of lip to older kids. And teachers. And pretty much everyone else who tried to intimidate me, whether or not it was for my own good. "

  She let out a little giggle. "That I can believe. "

  "You?" I asked gently.

  She shook her head. "Mine is silly, too. I walked home from school one day about two years ago and it was raining, so I ran straight inside. It was errands day, and I thought Mom was gone. "

  "Ah," I said. "Let me guess. You were still wearing the Gothy McGoth outfit instead of what your mom saw you leave the house in. "

  Her cheeks flushed pink. "Yes. Only she wasn't running errands. Gran had borrowed the van and taken the little ones to get haircuts because Mom was sick. I was in the living room and I hadn't changed back. All I wanted was to sink into the floor so she wouldn't see me. "

  "What happened?"

  Molly shrugged. "I closed my eyes. Mom came in. She sat down on the couch and turned on the TV, and never said a word. I opened my eyes and she was sitting there, three feet away, and hadn't even seen me. I walked out really quietly, and she never even glanced at me. I mean, at first I thought she'd gone crazy or into denial or something. But she really hadn't seen me. So I snuck back to my room, changed clothes, and she was none the wiser. "

  I lifted my eyebrows, impressed. "Wow. Really?"

  "Yes. " She peered up at me. "Why?"

  "Your first time out you called up a veil on nothing but instinct. That's impressive, kid. You've got a gift. "

  She frowned. "Really?"

  "Absolutely. I'm a full wizard of the White Council, and I can't do a reliable veil. "

  "You can't? Why not?"

  I shrugged. "Why are some people wonderful singers, even without training, and other people can't carry a tune in a bucket? It's something I just don't have. That you do. . . " I shook my head. "It's impressive. It's a rare talent. "

  She frowned over that, her gaze turning inward for a moment. "Oh. "

  "Bet you got one hell of a headache afterward. "

  She nodded. "Yes, actually. Like an ice-cream headache, only two hours long. How did you know?"

  "It's a fairly typical form of sensory feedback for improperly channeled energy," I said. "Everyone who does magic winds up with one sooner or later. "

  "I haven't read about anything like that. "

  "Is that what you did next? You figured out you could become the invisible girl, and went and studied books?"

  She was quiet for a moment, and I thought she was about to close up again. But then she said, quietly, "Yes. I mean, I knew how hard my Mom would be on me if I was. . . showing interest in that kind of thing. So I read books. The library, and a couple others that I got at Barnes and Noble. "

  "Barnes and Noble," I sighed, shaking my head. "You didn't head into any of the local occult shops?"

  "Not then," she said. "But. . . I tried to meet people. You know? Like, Wiccans and psychics and stuff. That was how I met Nelson, at a martial arts school. I'd heard the teacher knew things. But I don't think he did. Some of Nelson's friends were into magic, too, or thought they were. I never saw any of them do anything. "

  I grunted. "What did all those people tell you about magic?"

  "What didn't they tell me," she said. "Everyone thinks magic is something different. "

  "Heh," I said. "Yeah. "

  "And it wasn't like I could just go running around all the time. Not with school and the little ones to watch and my Mom looking over my shoulder. So, you know. Mostly books. And I practiced, you know? Tried little things. Little, teeny glamours. Lighting candles. But a lot of the things I tried didn't work. "

  "Magic isn't easy," I said. "Not even for someone with a strong natural talent. Takes a lot of practice, like anything
else. " I walked quietly for a few steps and then said, "Tell me about the spell you used on Rosie and Nelson. "

  She paused, staring at nothing, the blood draining from her face. "I had to," she said.

  "Go on. "

  Her pretty features were bleak. "Rosie had. . . she'd already had a miscarriage, because she kept getting high. And when she lost the baby, she went to the hard stuff. Heroin. I begged her to go into rehab, but she was just. . . too far gone, I guess. But I thought maybe I could help her. With magic. Like you help people. "

  Hooboy. I kept the dismay off my face and nodded for her to continue.

  "And one day last week, Sandra Marling and I had a talk. And during it, she told me how they were discovering that the presence of a very strong source of fear could bypass all kinds of psychological barriers. Things like addiction. That the fear could drive home a lesson, reliably and quickly. I didn't have much time. I had to do it to save Rosie's child. "

  I grunted. "Why do Nelson, too?"

  "He was. . . he was using too much. He and Rosie sort of reinforced each other. And I wasn't sure what might happen, so I tried the spell out before I used it on her, too. "

  "You tested it on Nelson?" I asked. "Then did the same one on Rosie?"

  She nodded. "I had to scare them away from the drugs. I sent them both a nightmare. "

  "Stars and stones," I muttered. "A nightmare. "

  Molly's voice became defensive. "I had to do something. I couldn't just sit there. "

  "Do you have any idea how much you hurt them both?" I asked.

  "Hurt them?" she said, apparently bewildered. "They were fine. "

  "They weren't fine," I said quietly. "But the same spell should have done more or less the same thing to both of them. It acted differently on

  Nelson than Rosie. " And then I put two and two together again and said, "Ah. Now I get it. "

  She didn't look up at me.

  "Nelson was the father," I said quietly.

  She shrugged. A tear streaked down her cheek. "They probably didn't even know what they were doing when it happened. The pair of them were just. . . " She shook her head and fell silent.

  "That explains why your spell damaged Nelson so much more severely. "

  "I don't understand. I never hurt him. "

  "I don't think you did it on purpose. " I waved a hand, palm up. "Magic comes from a lot of places. But especially from your emotions. They influence almost anything you can do. You were angry at Nelson when you cast the spell. Contaminated the whole thing with your anger. "

  "I did not hurt them," she said stubbornly. "I saved their lives. "

  "I don't think you realize the ramifications," I said.

  She spun to me and shrieked, "I did not hurt them!"

  The air suddenly crackled with tension; vague, unfocused energy centered on the screaming girl. There was enough energy to manage something unfortunate, and it was clear that the kid wasn't in anything like control of her power. I shook my head and swung my left hand in a half circle, palm faced out, and simply drew in the magical energy her emotions had generated and grounded it into the earth before somebody got hurt.

  A tingle of sensation washed up my arm, surprisingly intense. Her talent was not a modest one. I started to snap a reprimand for her carelessness, but aborted it before the first word. In the first place, she was ignorant of what she'd done. Not innocent, but not wholly at fault, all the same. In the second place, she'd just been through a nightmarish ordeal at the hands of wicked faeries. She probably couldn't have controlled her emotions, even if she wanted to.

  She stared at me in surprise as the energy she had raised vanished. The rage and pain in her stance and expression faded to uncertainty.

  "I didn't hurt them," she said in a rather small voice. "I saved them. "

  "Molly, you need to know the facts. I know you're tired and scared. But that doesn't change a damned thing about what you did to them. You fucked around with their minds. You used magic to enslave them to your will, and the fact that you meant well by it doesn't matter at all. Somewhere inside of them both, they know what you've done to them, subconsciously.

  They'll try to fight it. Regain control of their own choices. And that struggle is going to tear their psyches to shreds. "

  More tears fell from her eyes. "B-but. . . "

  I went on in a steady voice. "Rosie was better off. She might recover from it in a few years. But Nelson is probably insane already. He might not ever make it back. And doing it to them has screwed around with your own head. Not as bad as Rosie and Nelson, but you damaged yourself, too. It'll make it harder for you to control impulses and your magic. Which makes you a lot more likely to lose control and hurt someone else. It's a vicious cycle. I've seen it in action. "

  She shook her head several times. "No. No, no, no. "

  "Here's another truth," I said. "The White Council has seven Laws of Magic. Screwing around in other people's heads breaks one of them. When the Council finds out what you've done, they'll put you on trial and execute you. Trial, sentence, and execution won't take an hour. "

  She fell silent, staring at me, crying harder. "Trial?" she whispered.

  "A couple of days ago I watched them execute a kid who had broken the same law. "

  Her shocked expression could not seem to recover. Her eyes roamed randomly, blurred with tears. "But. . . I didn't know. "

  "Doesn't matter," I said.

  "I never meant to hurt anyone. "

  "Ditto. "

  She broke out into a half-hysterical sob and clutched at her stomach. "But. . . but that's not fair. "

  "What is?" I said quietly. "One more hard truth for you. I'm a Warden of the Council now, Molly. It's my job to take you to them. "

  She only stared. She looked wracked with pain, helpless, alone. God help me, she looked like the little girl I'd first met at Michael's house years before. I had to remind myself that there was another, darker portion of the girl behind those blue eyes. The snarling rage, the denial, they both belonged to the parts of her mind that had been twisted as she twisted others.

  I wished that I hadn't seen flashes of that other self in her, because I did not want to follow the chain of consequence that sprang from it. Molly had broken the Laws of Magic. She'd inflicted incalculable harm on others. Her damaged psyche could collapse on her, leaving her insane.

  All of which meant that she was dangerous.

  Ticking-bomb dangerous.

  It did not matter to the Laws that she had meant well. She had become exactly the kind of person that the Laws of Magic-and their sentence- were created to deal with.

  But when the law fails to protect those it governs, it's up to someone else to pick up the slack-in this case, me. There was a chance that I could save her life. It wasn't an enormous chance, but it was probably the best shot she was going to get. Assuming, of course, that she was not already too far around the bend.

  I only knew one sure way to find out.

  I stopped in the darkened hall and turned to her. "Molly. Do you know what a soulgaze is?"

  "It. . . I read in a book that it's when you look into someone's eyes. You see something about who they are. "

  "Close enough," I agreed. "You ever done it?"

  She shook her head. "The book said it could be dangerous. "

  "Can be," I confirmed. "Though probably not for the reasons you'd think. When you see someone like that, Molly, there's no hiding the truth about who you are. You see it all, good and bad. No specifics, usually, but you get a damned good idea about what kind of person they are. And it's for keeps. Once you've seen it, it stays in your head, fresh, period. And when you look at them, they get the same look at you. "

  She nodded. "Why do you ask?"

  "I'd like to gaze on you, if you're willing to permit it. "

  "Why?"

  I smiled a little, though my reflection in a passing window looked mostly sad. "Because
I want to help you. "

  She turned away, as if to start walking again, but only swayed in place, her torn skirts whispering. "I don't understand. "

  "I'm not going to hurt you, kid. But I need you to trust me for a little while. "

  She nodded, biting her lip. "Okay. What do I do?"

  I stopped and turned to face her. She mirrored me. "This might feel a little weird. But it won't last as long as it seems. "

  "Okay," she said, that lost-child tone still in her voice.

  I met her eyes.

  For a second, I thought nothing had happened. And then I realized that the soulgaze was already up and running, and that it showed me Molly, standing and facing me as nothing more than she seemed to be. But I could see down the hall behind her, and the church's windows held half a dozen different reflections.

  One was an emaciated version of Molly, as though she'd been starved or strung out on hard drugs, her eyes aglow with an unpleasant, fey light. One was her smiling and laughing, older and comfortably heavier, children surrounding her. A third faced me in a grey Warden's cloak, though a burn scar, almost a brand, marred the roundness of her left cheek. Still another reflection was Molly as she appeared now, though more secure, laughter dancing in her eyes. Another reflection showed her at a desk, working.

  But the last. . .

  The last reflection of Molly wasn't the girl. Oh, it looked like Molly, externally. But the eyes gave it away. They were flat as a reptile's, empty. She wore all black, including a black collar, and her hair had been dyed to match. Though she looked like Molly, like a human being, she was neither. She had become something else entirely, something very, very bad.

  Possibilities. I was looking at possibilities. There was definitely a strong presence of darkness in the girl, but it had not yet gained dominion over her. In all the potential images, she was a person of power-different kinds of power, certainly, but she was strong in all of them. She was going to wind up with power of her own to use or misuse, depending on what choices she made.

  What she needed was a guide. Someone to show her the ropes, to give her the tools she would need to deal with her newfound power, and all the baggage that came with it. Yes, that kernel of darkness still burned coldly within her, but I could hardly throw stones there. Yes, she had the potential to go astray on an epic scale.

  Don't we all.

  I thought of Charity and Michael, Molly's parents, her family. Her strength had been forged and founded in theirs. They both regarded the use of magic as something suspect at best, and if not inherently evil, then inherently dangerous. Their opposition to the power that Molly had manifested might turn the strength they'd given their daughter against her. If she believed or came to believe that her power was an evil, it could push her faster down the left-hand path.

  I knew something of how much Michael and Charity cared for their daughter.

  But they couldn't help her.

  One thing was certain, though, and gave me a sense of reassurance. Molly had not yet indelibly stained herself. Her future had yet to be written.

  It was worth fighting for.

  The gaze ended, and the various images in the windows behind Molly vanished. The girl herself trembled like a frightened doe, staring up at me with her eyes wide and huge.

  "My God," she whispered. "I never knew. . . "

  "Easy," I told her. "Sit down until things stop spinning. "

  I helped her settle to the floor with her back to the wall, and I did the same beside her. I rubbed at a spot between my eyebrows that began to twinge.

  "What did you see?" she whispered.

  "That you're basically a decent person," I told her. "That you have a lot of potential. And that you're in danger. "

  "Danger?"

  "Power's like money, kid. It isn't easy to handle well, and once you start getting it, you can't have enough. I think you're in danger because you've made a couple of bad choices. Used your power in ways that you shouldn't. Keep it up, and you'll wind up working for the dark side. "

  She drew her knees up to her chin and wrapped her arms around her legs. "Did. . . did you get what you needed?"

  "Yeah," I said. "You have a couple of choices to make, Molly. Starting with whether or not you want to turn yourself in to the Council. "

  She rocked back and forth, a nervous motion. "Why would I?"

  "Because they're going to find you, sooner or later. If that happens, if they think you're trying to avoid them, they'll probably kill you out of hand. But if you're willing to cooperate and face up to what you've done, and if someone intercedes on your behalf, the Council might withhold a death sentence. "

  "Aren't you just going to turn me in anyway?"

  "No," I said. "It's about choices, Molly. This one is yours. I'll respect what you want to do. "

  She frowned. "Would you get in trouble with them for that?"

  I shrugged. "Not sure. They might kill me for being in collusion with an evil wizard. "

  Her eyebrows lifted. "Really?"

  "They aren't exactly overflowing with tolerance and forgiveness and agape love," I told her. "They've almost pulled the trigger on me a couple of times. They're dangerous people. "

  She shivered. "You'd. . . you'd risk that for me?"

  "Yep. "

  She frowned, chewing that over. "And if I turn myself in?"

  "Then we'll explain what happened. I'll intercede for you. If the Council accepts that, then I'll be held responsible for your training and your use of magic. "

  She blinked. "You mean. . . I'd be your apprentice?"

  "Pretty much," I said. "But you have to understand something. It would mean that you agree to accept my leadership. If I tell you to do something, you do it. No questions, no delays. What I can teach you is no damn game. It's the power of life and death, and there's no room for anyone who doesn't work hard to control it. If you go to the Council with me, you're accepting those terms. Got it?"

  She shivered and nodded.

  "Next, you have to decide what you want to do with your power. "

  "What are my choices?" she asked.

  I shrugged. "You've got the juice to make the White Council, eventually, if that's what you want. Or you can find something worth supporting with your talents. I've heard of a couple of wizards who have made stupid amounts of money with their skills. Or hell, maybe after you learn to control yourself, you just set them aside. Let them fade. " Like your mom did.

  "I could never do that last one," she said.

  I snorted. "Think about it, kid. You join up with the wizards now and you wind up in the middle of the war. The bad guys won't care that you're young and untrained. "

  She chewed on her lip. "I should talk with my parents. Shouldn't I?"

  I exhaled slowly. "If you want to, you should. But you've got to realize that this is going to be your choice. You can't let anyone else make it for you. "

  She was quiet for a long time. Then she asked, in a very small voice, "Do you really think I could. . . could like, join the dark side?"

  "Yeah," I said quietly. "There are plenty of things out there who would be happy to help you along. Which is why I want to give you a hand-so that I can steer you away from that type until you know enough to handle them on your own. "

  "But. . . " Her face scrunched up. "I don't want to be a bad guy. "

  "No one wants it," I said. "Most of the bad guys in the real world don't know that they are bad guys. You don't get a flashing warning sign that you're about to damn yourself. It sneaks up on you when you aren't looking. "

  "But the Council. . . they'll see that, right? That I don't want to be like that?"

  "I can't guarantee you that they'll believe that. And even if they do, they might decide to execute you anyway. "

  She sat very still. I listened to her breathe. "If I go to the Council. . . can my parents come with me?"

  "No. "

  She swallowed. "Will you
?"

  "Yes. "

  She met my eyes again, this time without fear of a soulgaze beginning. That ship had sailed. Tear-stained cheeks gleamed and curved into a little smile that could not hide the fear behind it.

  I reached out and put my hand over hers. "I'll promise you this, Molly. I don't intend to let them hurt you. Period. The only way anyone will lay a finger on you is over my dead body. " Which would not be difficult for the Council to arrange, but there was no sense in mentioning that to the girl. Her day had been scary enough. "I think going with me is your best chance to get out of this," I continued. "If you decide that it's what you want, we'll sit down with your parents. They won't be thrilled with the idea, but they can't make the call on this one. It's yours. It has to be, or it won't mean anything. "

  She nodded and closed her eyes for a moment. Poor kid. She looked so damned young. I was fairly sure I had never been that young.

  Then she drew in a deep, shaking breath and said, "I want to go to the Council. "