Dresden Files Reread - Fool Moon Chapter 15

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MacFinn is both pinning and choking Harry, which severely limits Harry's options for a response. In desperation, he uses wholly nonverbal magic to electrocute MacFinn, kinda frying his own brain in the process. This is the first time it's explained why wizards normally use words in a language they don't actually speak, and the only time Harry does evocation without using any words at all. It leaves him dizzy and kinda hallucination, but it buys him some breathing room. Unfortunately, Tera has by now extricated herself from the snare, and thinks he killed MacFinn, so she tries to attack him, and his attempt to stop her with a whirlwind ends up rather more forceful than he intended, throwing her about 20 feet and stripping the leaves and bark from nearby trees. Harry attributes this to the inherent imprecision of evocation, something of which he complains throughout the first 8 books, but since this is, as far as I can recall, the only time he actually has this kind of problem when he's not super upset, I think it more likely that the nonverbal magic he used a minute ago is throwing him off. 

Two small asides. First of all, MacFinn is huge, like, as tall as Harry and "twice as wide", and if Harry had let Chaunzy fill him in on the "trivial details", he might have known that going in. Second, there's a whole thing where before Tera attacks him he thinks he sees her developing wolflike features but he's not sure if it's a hallucination or what. At this point it's pretty well established that this book is The Dresden Files Oops! All Werewolves, and we already know for a fact that Tera has a wolf form, so why are we getting "is it happening?" ambiguity here? Odd writing choice. 

Now that everyone's had a chance to calm down, Harry and MacFinn apologize to each other for the violence, and they head to MacFinn's campsite. Harry confirms that Kim Delaney is dead, which doesn't really surprise MacFinn, but he didn't know for sure. Then Harry insists that MacFinn answer his questions before he'll help, which MacFinn agrees to, with the constraint that they only have a few hours before moonrise. Mostly, he wants to know about Kim, how she knew MacFinn and came to be helping him, and why he killed her. Apparently he was frustrated with her for not leaving when he said the circle wasn't working, and if he's angry or frustrated at someone when he shifts, he's likely to attack them once in wolf form. He knew her through environmental activism, and she was indirectly involved with the Northwest Passage Project. His circle actually got messed up before last month's full moon, but he dealt with it by going off into the middle of nowhere. 

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This raises a couple of question for me. First, if the middle of nowhere was an option, why were they
experimenting with Kim doing the circle in an apartment in the middle of a city, rather than somewhere less populous? Second, who made MacFinn's circle in the first place? Third, with an entire damn month to work on it, why didn't they at least try to fix the permanent circle? It's not as though cost of materials was a concern, and wizards...exist. Even if he didn't want to get Harry involved, like because of the rumor that he was working for Marcone (although you'd think Kim could have cleared that up for him), there was presumably the circle's original creator, who would reasonably be the person most qualified to repair it. And why, why didn't Kim level with Harry about what she was working on?

MacFinn says he didn't kill Harding last month, and Harry believes him, but for some reason this sets off another paranoia spiral about Tera, whether she's killing people at MacFinn's request, whether she's working with Marcone against MacFinn, which...almost makes sense, except then why fix Harry's shoulder? He asks her a vague questions about the Alphas, and she gives an equally vague answer, which establishes that MacFinn doesn't know about whatever she's doing with the Alphas, and she doesn't want to tell him. That's legitimately suspicious, but the Q and A session gets cut short by the sound of Murphy and Carmichael searching the woods for them. Terra wants to split up, but Harry has to stay with MacFinn so he can do the circle when the time comes. All his reservations about working with them are immediately discarded in the face of a common threat. Tera, without consulting Harry or MacFinn, goes off to cause a diversion, keep the police busy, and after some hesitation on MacFinn's part, they make a run for it. 

I think we're actually coming up on being halfway through the book. If you missed yesterday's post about what we're gonna be doing with the Wheel of Time reread series, make sure you check that out. Chapter 16 should be going up on Saturday. Until then, be gay, do crimes, and read All The Things!