"There were fewer than a thousand printed," Kumori confirmed. "Time has taken most of them. Over the past month we have accounted for the rest, but for two here, in Chicago, in this store."

"Why?" I demanded.

Cowl moved his shoulders in the barest hint of a shrug. "Is it not enough that Kemmler's disciples could use this knowledge for great evil?"

"Are you with the Council?" I responded.

"Obviously not," Kumori replied from the depths of her hood.

"Uh-huh," I said. "Seems to me that if you were on the up-and-up you'd be working with the Council, rather than running around reinterpreting Fahrenheit 451 from a Ringwraith perspective."

"And it seems to me," Kumori answered smoothly, "that if you believed that their motives were as pure as they claim, you would already have notified them yourself."

Hello. Now that was a new tune, someone suggesting that the Council was bent and I was in the right. I wasn't sure what Kumori was trying to do, but it was smartest to play this out and see what she had to say. "Who says I haven't?"

"This is pointless," Cowl said.

Kumori said, "Let me tell him."

"Pointless."

"It costs nothing," Kumori said.

"It's going to if you keep dawdling," I said. "I'm going to start billing you for wasting my time."

She made a weird sound that I only just recognized as a sigh. "Can you believe, at least, that the contents of the book are dangerous?"

Grevane had seemed fond enough of his copy. But I wouldn't know for sure what the big stink was about until I had time to read the book myself. "For the sake of expediency, let's say that I do."

"If the knowledge inside the book is dangerous," Cowl said, "what makes you think that the Wardens or the Council would use it any more wisely than Kemmler's disciples?"

"Because while they are a bunch of enormous assholes, they always try to do the right thing," I said. "If one of the Wardens thought he might be about to practice black magic, he'd probably cut off his own head on pure reflex."

"All of them?" Kumori asked in a quiet voice. "Are you sure?"

I looked back and forth between them. "Are you telling me that someone on the Council is after Kemmler's power?"

"The Council is not what it was," said Cowl. "It has rotted from the inside, and many wizards who have chafed at its restrictions have seen the war with the Red Court reveal its weakness. It will fall. Soon. Perhaps before tomorrow night."

"Oh," I drawled. "Well, gee, why didn't you say so? I'll just hand you my copy of the book right now."

Kumori held up a hand. "This is no deception, Dresden. The world is changing. The Council's end is near, and those who wish to survive it must act now. Before it is too late."