Dresden Files Reread - Grave Peril Chapter 27

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Lea is dressed as a waterfall, in a flowy blue dress with white lace at the hem, and a gauzy opalescent shawl. I'm not entirely sure what the symbolism is meant to be on this one, not lest because waterfalls are such an inherently variable proposition, which I suspect may be part of the point. My strongest immediate reference point is the role waterfalls play in children's fiction and family movies, in which they are something for going over, a sudden massive disruption and shift in the narrative that leaves Our Heroes disoriented, stripped of resources, and possibly scattered, but essentially unscathed, which isn't the first way it would occur to me to characterize Lea's presence in this book. Upon reflection...yeah, no. Of she hadn't given Bianca the sword, Harry still might not have made it out of there in one piece, but he would have had substantially more options. My actual personal experience of waterfalls is mostly of the little ones you see hiking in the Cascades and Olympics, about which there's not a whole lot to say other than that they're nice to look at, and mildly exciting if you happen to be a city kid who doesn't necessarily see a whole lot of Nature. Waterfalls may also be associated with change and impermanence, balance, evolution, and unharnessed potential or energy, but none of that immediately makes me go "Oh, yeah, that tracks with Lea's role here." It could, I suppose, be an oblique reference to to the hint she gave Harry back in the graveyard. This unclarity about the costume is made more frustrating by Lea's explicitly identifying herself as a metaphor. A metaphor for what, Lea? I know you're usually about artistic madness and lust for power, but what are you doing here, and how is it supported or subverted by your being dressed as a waterfall? We also get a description of glamour, including a firm confirmation that Lea's beauty is partly magical in origin. 

Harry meets her Little Red Riding Hood reference with one of his own, and then returns his attention to trying to persuade Susan to leave. She's not having it, insisting (wrongly) that she can protect herself and (validly) that if it's that dangerous, shes not gonna leave Harry alone here. Like, she's sufficiently competent, and has demonstrated herself to be adequately well-prepared that were circumstances even slightly altered, she'd be substantially more of an asset than a liability. The difficulties here are that she's not protected by hospitality, that Harry cannot accept with equanimity the possibility of her getting hurt, and he's not really in any condition to take care of himself, much less anyone else. Only one of those things would need to not be true. 

Unfortunately, Harry's obvious desire to protect Susan draws Lea's attention to her. She tries to make eye contact with Susan, and Harry narrowly intervenes, getting caught in her glamour in the process. She floods his mind with visions of what it will be like when he stops resisting and gives himself to her. The phrase "the tips of her breasts" makes an appearance, but the emphasis is on peace, rest, the absence of pain, and conflict, and responsibility. Harry, as I mentioned a few chapters back, and back in Fool Moon I think, is in a pretty much constant state of physical and emotional discomfort, and desperately needs a break. Not a great idea at this exact moment though. It physically hurts, but he pushes the glamour away and tells her "no". Very impressive, especially under the circumstances, but sadly this also makes the third time he's refused to honor their bargain. Threes, as Harry knows perfectly well when he's not drugged, concussed, exhausted, and trying to get his girlfriend to leave the monster party before something eats her, have particular significance in faerie, and this third refusal causes his magic to turn against him. 

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Harry goes all wibbly, and Susan demands an explanation so that Lea can exposit a more thorough version of the above for the reader's benefit. She seems genuinely regretful, and I don't think it's just, as Harry suggests, because his weakening himself this way will leave her with less to "eat". I'm still not entirely sure what pre-sidhesicle Lea wants with Harry, but her feelings and motives where he's concerned have always been complex. I suspect the basic shape of the idea was to amuse herself with hm while keeping him safe and pliant for future use by Winter, but she does, in some sense, care about him, at least a little. 

Susan tells Lea to stop it, and Lea invites her to make a deal, not for Harry's debt, which she certainly couldn't afford, but for relief from the immediate impact of the broken oath. Susan is so startled by a request for her eyes that Lea withdraws the offer, and firmly refuses to give her Name. She doesn't really understand what Lea is asking for when she asks for Susan's love (which I suspect is an inappropriately high price in any case), and Lea retracts that as well, before asking for a year of Susan's memories. Given the disproportionate cost of Lea's first three offers, and how quickly she withdrew the two that Susan didn't immediately refuse, I suspect this was her real aim, and that she meant to create anchoring bias, making what would otherwise be a rather startling request sound reasonable by comparison. I don't really know what she wanted with Susan's memories of Harry, though a benevolent read suitable to her later characterization might be that she knew Harry would be able to restore Susan's memory, and was getting as close as the rules would allow to doing it for free, which might be supported by the stress given later to the sidhe's inability to give or accept anything without a fair trade. Only, in that case, why go bother them in the first place. I suppose it's possible that she, unlike Bianca, really was trying to get Harry to leave, and figure getting his newly amnesiac girlfriend to safety might be sufficient to make him do that, but since Susan isn't protected by hospitality, I feel like there would have been easier ways to do that, like, I don't know, sticking a glamour on Susan that made her do whatever anyone told her, rendering her both exceptionally vulnerable and more, rather than less, amenable to extraction. Then again, she may have been trying something like that when she attempted to force eye contact with Susan a minute ago, only someone intervened, so this is her plan B. That said, I'm not sure the benevolent reading holds up at all, since this is the book in which she tries to break Amoracchius. Susan agrees to it, and Lea seals the deal with a kiss on the forehead (also "the tips of her breasts" harden - please, Jim, just say "nipples), and then slaps Harry across the face. Now, this symbolism I get. The rejection conveyed by the slap basically cancels out one of the times he refused her, setting the balance back to two, and thus below the critical threshold. 

Harry starts to feel better right away, some of the effects of the red court venom apparently effect of the broken oath. Michael is still pretty upset, and tries to threaten Lea, but she interrupts him and offers to bargain with him, this time for the sword. Michael offers himself, but apparently such a bargain wouldn't hold once he had the sword back, and in any case he's too rigid, and righteous, for her tastes. She would, however, happily take Molly in exchange for Amoracchius. 

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I feel like there's some AU potential there. At this point, neither Lea nor Maeve has been infected, so  there's no reason to think Maeve will need to be replaced, but at the end of Cold Days Mab claims she had a different role in mind for Molly. She also says, earlier in the same conversation, that she "would have considered her a better candidate for Summer", and it's not clear whether she's talking about the same thing in those two places, so it's possible that Aurora was already infected, and Mab meant to replace her, presumably going behind Titania's back, which tracks since Titania is a bit too sentimental to approach this reasonably. It's almost Halloween, so they'd need to wait at least a year, to prepare her suitably, but since Ronal Reuel hasn't been murdered yet, there's no reason to think they don't have time. Heck, given that Molly is like, 11 in this book, they might be planning to go the full Tam Lin and give her seven years, wait until she's 18. It's also possible Winter wanted her for something else entirely, some role that either hasn't been explicitly named or with which Molly has never been associated. In any case, if Michael were taken by some temporary madness and did trade Molly for the sword, here's what I think happens: Michael gets the sword back. Lea, lacking an appropriate gift for Bianca, trades Susan to her instead. so Susan is still half-turned, and Harry still starts the war with the Red Court. Lea receives the dagger, becomes infected, and infects both Maeve and Molly. In Summer Knight, Harry almost gets into serious trouble trying to rescue Molly when after encountering her somewhere in Winter, probably as part of Maeve's entourage, but there's no substantial alteration to the plot until Proven Guilty, in which some other impetus will have to set up the raid on Arctis Tor. (Someone else will also have to make the suggestion that Harry tie Susan up while they have sex in Death Masks, assuming we want to ensure Maggie's conception). They find Lea and Molly in the ice garden. Molly's younger, more flexible mind was easier to disinfect, so she's been clean and just chilling for a little while now, perhaps working some mind magic to bring Lloyd Slate what comfort he can while he hangs from the tree. (Or making it worse - this would strictly come down to what she's been told about him, and by whom). Rosie and Nelson are never hurt, and the Council's suspicion of Molly (to say nothing of her very real sketchiness and instability) is prompted by her having spent almost a third of her young life in Winter, rather than by her history as a warlock. It's hard to know what happens from here, as we've got a very different Molly, and the plot is gonna diverge ever further as her role in the narrative becomes more substantial. 

Anyway, not only does Michael not agree, he physically picks Lea up buy the front of her dress and threatens to destroy her "for all time" if she doesn't stay away from his family. She laughs, apparently teleports out of his grip, informs him that rage weakens his power (which is good to know, and may help explain how things went for Murphy with Fidelacchius), and vanishes into the shadows. 

After Michael makes sure Harry is okay, and Harry makes a mental note to check in with Bob about the whole "self-inflicted spell" thing, they return their attention to trying to get Susan out of there. Of course, now they have a new problem - she doesn't remember who Harry is. 

See? I told you it would be faster. I don't know if the next one is gonna be quite this fast, but I've hit a lowish point in my annual workload, so there shouldn't be any more massive delays. Until next time, be gay, do crimes, and read all the things!