"Because you people have been threatening to kill me for doing something I didn't do since I was sixteen years old," I said. "You're all convinced I'm some sort of hideous threat, and every time you get the chance you try to make my life miserable."

Luccio listened attentively and then said, "Yes. And?"

"And?" I said. "I've spent my entire adult life with the Wardens looking over my shoulder waiting for a chance to accuse me of things I didn't do, and trying to set me up and entrap me when you never found me doing anything."

Luccio's eyebrows shot up. "What?"

"Don't give me that," I said. "You know damned well that Morgan tried to provoke me into attacking him just before we got the treaty with Winter, so he and the Merlin would have an excuse to throw me to the vampires."

Luccio's eyes widened, and her voice came out harder. " What?" She shot a look at Morgan, and then back at me. "Are you telling me the truth?"

There was some kind of cadence to the question that her words didn't usually have, and on pure instinct I reached out with my senses. I could feel a light tension in the air, humming like the space between the tines of a tuning fork.

"Yes," I told her. The humming chime continued unabated. "I'm telling you the truth."

She stared at me for a long second and then settled back onto her chair. The humming tension faded. She folded her hands on the table, frowning down at them. "Then… There were rumors. Of how Morgan behaved around you. But I thought that they were only that."

"They weren't," I said. "Morgan has threatened and persecuted me every time he got the chance." I clenched my right hand into a fist. "And I have done nothing. I won't become a part of that, Warden Luccio. So keep the cape. I wouldn't polish my car with it."

She regarded her folded hands, eyes narrow. "Dresden," she said quietly. "The White Council is at war. Would you simply abandon your own people to the mercies of the Red Court? Would you stand aside and let Kemmler's disciples have their way?"

"Of course not," I said. "And I never said I wouldn't fight. But I won't be wearing this." I shoved the cloak across the table. "Keep it."

She shoved it back to the table before me. "Put it on."

"Thank you, no."

"Dresden," Luccio said, and her voice was calm and agate-hard. "It is not a request."

"I don't respond well to threats," I said.

"Then respond to reality," she snapped. "Dresden, the Wardens are all but shattered. We need every battle-capable wizard we can recruit, train, or conscript."

"A lot of wizards can fight," I growled.

"And they aren't Harry Dresden," she said. "You idiot. Don't you know what I am offering you?"