In the end, I didn't need to call Ramirez in on Kincaid's errand. Which was probably for the best, all things considered. Carl Elias did in fact have a very elaborate alliance going with both the underbelly of the NYPD and several Red Court thugs, but he'd forgotten to take a few things into account.

Or maybe it was just that his right hand man, a slick-looking gangster with a scar curving down from the outer corner of his right eye, had missed some ABCs in his magical education. Orphans raised in the school of hard knocks rarely come to the attention of the White Council in any constructive way, unless they're a lot more powerful than Scarface, and happen to get identified early on. He seemed to be a dab hand at magical explosions and less than legal methods of persuasion, but apparently wasn't aware of everything a well-crafted searching spell could do.

The knife I 'borrowed' from the police lockup that day didn't have Elias' blood on it, and had never been wielded in passion by his hands. But the last two people it had killed had been his mother and the man who'd killed her: Elias had been obsessed with its function in his life for more than forty years. Wisps of his soul still clung to it from the last time he'd been in its proximity... and as I had good reason to know, you can do some truly spectacular things with only a little soul to work with.

I smiled grimly as I approached a boutique winery turned criminal hideaway, and knocked loudly on the door of the building where they stowed the tuns of recent vintages. "Little scumbag, little scumbag, let me come in," I sing-songed.

For a would-be mob king, Elias wasn't all that physically intimidating: a little balding guy who wore glasses and open-necked shirts and held himself like a gradeschool teacher. His second looked much more the part. But then again, the first time I'd met Marcone, Chicago's Baron had reminded me of a college football coach instead of someone capable of stringing a man up by his toenails. Hendricks was the obvious muscle in that pairing, too. But only a guy with a suicide wish would turn his back on either mobster to face his muscle.

"I suppose this is the part where I'm meant to quote the rest of the nursery rhyme?" Elias replied, opening the door a crack and eyeing me with a faint, disapproving frown. "You must be the magical authorities, then. Some friends of mine suggested you might drop by. Though to tell the truth, I expected you a little sooner."

"Oh, you know how it is," I said nonchalantly, flicking the drape of my grey Warden's cloak aside to ready my shield bracelet. "Big territory, only so many hours in the day. You know what they say: it's the squeaky wheel that gets the grease."

"Is that that what they call it these days." Elias' expression took on a distinct air of amusement. "And how is Gentleman John? Grip as firm as ever? On the Windy City, of course."

I didn't work for Marcone, and never would, but we'd ended up on the same side of a fight more times than I could ever have guessed the day I threw his first job offer back in his face. He'd used that to his political benefit on occasion, and I hadn't kicked up much of a fuss over it, for reasons that had seemed good to me at the time. Given his connections, it wasn't a surprise that Elias had heard the rumors.

"I haven't had any complaints," I said, with a dismissive shrug. 'Complaint' was, after all, far too mild a word for the sort of argument I usually had with Johnny.

"It is quite the territory, if you're responsible for both New York and Chicago," Elias said, in a more conciliatory tone. "My associate has handled my magical security quite admirably, but I could use the resources you could bring as I expand my business, as well. Perhaps we might come to a similar arrangement?"

I tipped my head to the left, making a show of clapping my hand over that ear and shaking it. "I'm sorry, I must have heard that wrong. Or did you miss the part where I called you a scumbag?"

The smile slipped off his face at that. When Marcone loses his affable businessman's façade, he gives off the impression of a tiger on the hunt: ruthless, driven, and top-of-the-food-chain deadly. Elias vibed of scales and poisoned fangs instead; the creepiness of it raised my hackles, though not enough to tempt me to look him in the mind's eye to find out why.

"Now, there's no call for that kind of rudeness," he chided me, dark eyes g one flat. And before he'd even finished speaking, Scarface finally made his presence known, flinging the door wide and unleashing a torrent of fire in my direction.

I smirked and raised my shield hand; fire was no threat to me these days. A dome of iridescent energy snapped into place between us; then I dipped my other hand in a pocket and came up with my blasting rod.

"Vento reflittum!" I called, dashing the fire back in his face. The flames roared like a living thing as they curled back on their caster; Scarface dropped the spell in a hurry and staggered backward, pulling his boss after him.

That put them both back on the other side of the threshold. That would have been a problem if they'd been holed up in a house, with a healthy magical barrier generated by the energy of its inhabitants. But this was a public location.

"Don't mind if I do!" I said, and followed them into the building.

To my surprise, there wasn't anyone else inside; no human goons, no Red Court mooks. Apparently, Elias had been up to Sekrit Bizness there; lucky for me, not so much for him. The fight didn't last much longer; the only casualty was a quantity of splintered, leaking barrels. I washed my hands of Elias, his second, and their hostage, a wary older mobster called Gianni Moretti, with pleasure; the contact I'd been given in the NYPD didn't ask any inconvenient questions, presumably used to New York's equivalent of Special Investigations.

That done, I turned my feet back toward the Library. There hadn't been much time before the briefing to talk, but the longer I'd been around the man who called himself Harold Finch, the more suspicious I'd become about his connection to Ivy. The expression on his face when I talked about her had betrayed a connection that went a lot deeper than that between acolyte and Archive; he seemed to see her as a person before a powerful ancient artifact, and I had to agree with Kincaid, that was something Ivy needed more of in her life.

And there was the bodyguard, too. Between the high-end suit, the blank wall of his face, and the weapons I'd noted on his person, Reese had come off as one of Kincaid's ilk at first glance. But that impression had only lasted until I'd registered the banked fire smoldering just under the controlled surface; he reminded me a bit of Murphy, at her most righteously motivated. It made me wonder what would have happened if I'd brought one of the loose Swords of the Cross to the party.

Potential, Kincaid had said. Yeah, that was one way of putting it. I was definitely going to have to keep tabs on the pair in future. And maybe find out what Reese's real name and lineage might be- the Swords seemed to have a vaguely feudal sort of the-king-is-the-land type of prerequisite attached to their offers.

That was for the future, though. I tabled the issue as I walked back up the steps to the abandoned building, pausing at the door to look up at the camera. Since I tend to fry sensitive electronics in a wide radius around me without even trying, it seemed only polite to give the Librarian a chance to shut his down before going inside.

A moment later the door opened slightly, revealing the Librarian himself, wearing a small, reserved smile. "Mr. Dresden, come in; I wasn't sure we'd be seeing you again today. John was out attempting to persuade the Dons to accept protection, with little success, when we received the news about your encounter with Elias. He's shadowing Detective Carter on her way back to the precinct now. Mr. Moretti appeared particularly impressed with your intervention; he's refused to say so much as a word about his rescuer."

You team up with one mob boss to save your city, and you pay, and you pay. But the side benefits were occasionally useful. I wondered what Marcone would make of the news from New York, when the rumors made their way back in his direction.

I nodded. "Putting them in jail only solves half the problem, though. The Red Court were investing heavily in Elias' campaign; I need to do some pest control before I go back, or you'll just be facing the same problem again in a few months. Got some time to fill me in on the backstory?"

Finch had led me to a room appointed with a table, a few chairs, and a powered down computer setup; he narrowed his eyes, then sank carefully into one of the chairs, favoring a stiff neck and leg. "I would have assumed you'd gleaned all the information you needed when you retrieved the knife that killed Marlene Elias. Is it her son's backstory you're really asking for, or mine? As I said earlier, I've no need of special consideration; I've scraped by very creditably since I left the Archive's service, and I think it in poor taste to taunt me with the prospect of renewed contact with- with Ivy- when I know quite well the White Council will never allow it."

Yeah; there was definitely something deeper there. "What exactly is your relationship to her? The Council might have some say in Ivy's protection while she's still physically underage, but she's not actually a kid; she knows her own mind. They cautioned the hell out of me for befriending her, but they couldn't forbid me from seeing her. What makes you so different?"

Finch pursed his lips, glancing aside. For all that he'd apparently been the original mind behind social media, I got the impression he was a very private guy. Kincaid had told me he was very good with veils, despite his otherwise minimal talent; having met him now, that didn't surprise me at all.

Finally, he looked back at me, courteously focusing his gaze away from my eyes. "Her grandmother and I had... call it a genetic arrangement. If you've been told that the Archive customarily discourages its host from intensities of emotion in order to make the burden of all of recorded human history easier to bear, then you'll understand why it could never have been more than that. But as long as there's been an Archive, she's always known a mother, if no other family. The idea of her alone, an abandoned child..."

He trailed off, looking pained; I stared, jaw agape.

Stars and stones, no wonder Kincaid had called me. He was right that the White Council would discourage Finch's involvement in her life even more stringently than they'd discouraged me. Huh.

"Can I borrow this?" I said, grabbing a marker laid out near the pane of glass he and his partner used as a wipeboard. Then, without waiting for an answer, I wrote:

Hey Ivy! I met your granddad today. He misses you. How soon can you be in New York?

Finch stared at me aghast. "Really, Mr. Dresden, I hardly think..."

Before he could finish his sentence, a landline phone suddenly started ringing nearby. Finch startled visibly at the sound, then slowly slid his chair toward it and warily lifted an old-fashioned handset to his ear. He didn't say a word, but I Listened in shamelessly, and easily recognized Kincaid's brusque voice on the other end.

"Tomorrow. Lunchtime. Tell Dresden to stick around. Oh- and just so you know, she'd like to meet her step-Reese, too."

"Step-Reese?" Finch said faintly in response.

Kincaid chuckled. "You've been missed. She understands. But make sure you show up."

Finch swallowed at the sound of the dialtone, then carefully put down the phone. "Mr. Dresden..."

"Better to ask forgiveness than permission," I shrugged, giving him my best cheeky grin.

A hesitant, hopeful smile began to turn up the corners of his mouth. "I suppose... I've never been one to follow rules for the sake of rules, either."

That settled, he offered me the cot in the back room for the night, then went out to track down Ivy's "Step-Reese". I would have given a lot to hear that conversation, too; but the next day was going to be a long one, and the Library's threshold was surprisingly warm, welcoming, and protective.

Splatting Red Court minions occupied most of the next morning. But I made sure to be back at the Library before lunch, just as a limo rolled up to the curb with Kincaid behind the wheel.

Ivy was still a few years away from earning her own driver's license. But she wasn't a child anymore, either. She opened the passenger door herself and climbed out, a teenage blonde all slender, coltish limbs in a Sunday-best dress... then froze, staring up at the pair at the Library doors.

Finch took an abortive step toward her, the yearning on his face echoing hers. That was all Ivy needed; she broke free of her paralysis and flung herself at them, clinging to Finch's bespoke suit like a gangly burr.

I looked over at Kincaid and cleared my throat.

"High pollen count today," he said, gruffly.

I nodded, thumbing moisture away from the corner of one eye. "You didn't have to call in a favor for this, you know. I'd have done it for free." I meant it, too; Kincaid's request had brought me to New York, but Elias' own actions had mandated my interference. And anything would have been worth the smile breaking over Ivy's face.

"Better for everyone if the slate's clear. Now there's just the one I owe you."

Supernatural politics. The bane of my wizardly existence. But they'd brought some pretty good things my way, too; I'd never have met Ivy without them.

I watched while she held out a slender hand to Reese, whose stern façade visibly melted under her attention. Then I nodded as she turned to me.

She ignored my attempt to be respectful and flung herself at me, too.

Yeah, the world was getting darker every year. No disputing that. But all was not lost yet; and in that moment, all was right with my world.

-END-