It looked brand-new.
“Belowdecks is still like it was, right?” I asked.
Molly laughed. “Harry, it was sunk. We had to replace a lot. And it’s not as if you’ve been terribly communicative lately, so you don’t get to complain when I do something nice for you.”
“This is still America,” I said. “I can complain about anything I want, no matter how irrational.”
“It’s still practical,” Molly said soothingly. “For God’s sake, Harry. It’s just clean. We can’t have you taking a visiting head of state out in an old waterlogged rust bucket.” She brushed silver hair back from her eyes and studied my expression for a moment.
“What?” I asked her uncertainly.
“Harry,” she said quietly, “it’s okay for you to have some good things in your life. You know that, right? It’s okay for things to get better sometimes.”
I looked back at the city. At the skyline. It had gaps in it, as unsettling and ugly as broken and missing teeth. Part of that was on me. When I had struck down the Red Court, years ago, it had created the instability that had let the Fomor get ideas about asserting power. The city had been attacked as a result.
Molly watched me, her blue eyes intent, as if reading my thoughts. “You’re feeling bad because you’ve got a new house and a new boat when so many people have so little.”
“I’m feeling bad because I’m part of thereasonthey have so little,” I countered.
“That’s partly true,” Molly said. She came over and put a hand on my shoulder. “But if you hadn’t been here to defend Chicago, there wouldn’tbeany buildings left, Harry. And hundreds of thousands more people would have died. I was there. I saw it.”
“Couldn’t have happened without me,” I said.
“Or me,” she said. “Or Vadderung. Or Mab. Or Titania. Or a lot of other people.” She shook her head. “You’ve always been kind of arrogant about some things, Harry. But claiming responsibility for something this big crosses a line somewhere. Maybe it becomes hubris.” She squeezed my shoulder. “Stop torturing yourself. Please. You aren’t the only one who gets hurt when you do it.”
I frowned and glanced at her.
She smiled mostly with her eyes and held up both hands placatingly. “Maybe just consider the idea that you did the best you could in a bad situation that nobody could have managed perfectly. And maybe take that anger you’re feeling toward yourself and direct it where it rightly belongs—with Ethniu and the Fomor. You know. The ones who actually destroyed the town and murdered people.”
“There are always predators, Molls,” I said quietly. “They always make the same choices. It’s up to us to make the ones that keep them from hurting anyone.”
“Hubris, Harry,” she said gently. “It’s not given to us to stop every bad thing that happens to anyone, anywhere. That’s not how it works. We don’t have that kind of power.”
“If not us,” I said, “who?”
“Maybe nobody,” Molly said. “Maybe there’s just power and choice and consequence.”
“There’s more,” I said. I stared at the clean white lines of theWater Beetle. “There has to be.”
“Harry,” she said. “You’re a dear friend. I love you. I want you to be strong and happy.” She shook her head. “But right now, you’re taking the weight of the whole world on your shoulders because you feel guilty about Karrin’s death, and you want to punish yourself. I grew up Catholic. I know the look.”
“What do you recommend?” I asked. “Confession?”
She thought for a moment before answering. “Eventually,” she said carefully, “you’ll find more balance. It’s hard to see very far past the end of your own nose when you’re in a lot of pain. You need to take care of yourself. You need to heal.” She exhaled through her nose. “Are you ready for today?”
I grunted. “Lara tries anything, I’ll dunk her in the lake until she calms down. I don’t think there will be an issue. Last time she tried something on the island, I sat her down pretty hard.”
“When she tried to kill you, you mean. And you still played nice.”
“You got a problem with that?” I asked her, genuinely curious.
“If it had been a man who had crossed that line, I think you’d have killed him,” Molly said.
My thoughts went unbidden to Detective Lieutenant Rudolph. The man responsible for Karrin’s death. It had taken two Knights of the Cross to keep me from murdering him. The burn on my arm ached and smoldered, the only real, unfiltered physical pain I’d felt since I’d taken up the mantle of the Winter Knight.
I thought of a number of Fomor soldiers who had been about to kill a bunch of the people who had risen up to defend Chicago. The enemy troops had all been male. I’d incinerated them.
“You don’t think about women the same way you think about men,” Molly said. “That’s partly because you see yourself as a protector. As a knight in shining armor.”
