“Without casting any accusations,” Forthill said delicately, “I feel I must point out that there was a significant presence of Lady Lara’s people involved in the attack.”
“They are my people,” Lara said forthrightly. “If only barely. I knew they were plotting but I didn’t know what they had in mind, specifically. In my defense, in the past my intelligence about the other Houses has been a great deal more precise.”
“Maybe,” I suggested, “they had help from inside Raith.”
Lara looked at me and met my eyes for a moment. I could see the calculation happening there. It took her almost an entire second to get it.
“Oh,” she said in a flat, unamused voice. “Really.”
This was family business, that Lord Raith had been involved. I didn’t want to spread it out any further than it had to go.
“Saw it with my own eyes,” I said. “A middleman also explains the coordination of different interests.”
Lara pursed her lips for a moment, and then her mouth quirked at one corner. “I believe I know how to turn the issue to advantage. It will be addressed.”
“It isn’t hard to work out why the ghouls wanted trouble with you,” Ramirez said in a dry tone.
“Yeah, I’m good with them showing up, no questions,” I said. “Question is, why would Drakul send his inner circle here and then blow it all up?”
Butters frowned and raised his hand. “I’m not exactly a schemy kind of guy,” he said apologetically. “But when you’re working out logic, the first thing you do is make sure the things you’re taking as givens are solid. Do we have any way to know Drakul sent them here to kill you?”
I looked around the circle. Everyone was looking at Butters.
“I mean,” Butters continued, “what if the point was to get rid of them?”
Lara chewed on her lip. “At Halloween,” she said, “Drakul spoke of making his organization leaner.”
“And he’s still got Wild Bill and Yoshimo,” I said quietly. “They aren’t chump sorcerers. They’re experienced battle wizards.”
“And Mavra,” Lara said. She nodded several times. “Cui bono?Mavra is now the eldest of Drakul’s inner circle. She has advanced herself. Drakul’s inner circle were of a courtier’s mindset. They would never yield their positions or authority for something as pedestrian as practicality. Mavra is more flexible than that. She has done Drakul a service by removing clumsy, blunt instruments.”
“Fighting the last war,” Will said, frowning.
“What?” I asked.
“There’s an aphorism used among military historians,” Will said. “Everyone goes into a war prepared to fight like it was the most recent one they were in. But while the big picture of war is the same, the specifics always change. Whoever is best at adapting to those specifics prevails.”
I grunted. “World War II, everyone thought naval matters would be decided by battleships,” I said quietly. “But the aircraft carrier had come along.”
“Exactly,” Will said.
“Drakul is preparing for the next war,” Ramirez murmured.
The room was quiet for a long moment.
“And he seems to have his eye on you, Dresden,” Lara said.
My throat felt a little dry. Probably needed to hydrate.
“Then it’s smart for us to start looking sharper, too,” I said. “We need to know more. I’ll speak to the Winter Lady. She has access to a lot of Winter intelligence. And I can have the Little Folk take a more active role here in town. Will, be as subtle as you can, but I want you to start reaching out through the Paranet. Disappearances or anything that looks like Black Court activity needs to get flagged.”
Will nodded, writing. “It isn’t going to take long for word of what happened tonight to spread among the Paranetters,” he said quietly. “There’s going to be a lot of people afraid of you, Harry. But I’ll do what I can.”
I grimaced and nodded.
“Once I have cleaned house, I’ll take a more active role as well,” Larasaid. “Mortal intelligence services gather more information about the supernatural world than most of our kind suspect. Perhaps that can be turned to our advantage.”
“I’ll have to move carefully,” Ramirez said quietly. “The Council’s intelligence is second to none. But I’m already being watched. I’ll see what I can find out.”
