It wasn’t much of a mystery how they’d gotten into the room: Fitz stood there with a set of bolt cutters with three-feet-long handles held over his shoulder. Fitz looked scared enough for everyone there. The kid was back in the lair of his erstwhile mentor and terrified of his wrath.

Yeah.

I knew that feeling.

Butters fumbled his little spirit radio out of his pocket and asked, in a hushed voice, “Dresden, you here?”

“To your left,” I said quietly.

He shone Bob’s eyelights my way and evidently saw me illuminated by them. “Oh,” he said, looking relieved. “Right. Good.”

I had no clue why he looked relieved. It wasn’t like I could do anything, unless some random ghost came by, in which case my memorybased magic could cook another being incapable of affecting the material world.

But I guess he looked up to me, or at least to my memory, and I owed it to him to help however I could. So I gave him a calm nod and an encouraging clench of my fist. Solid.

“I take it we’ve come in through a blind spot?” I asked Fitz quietly.

Fitz nodded. “The chains on the doors were enough. And he couldn’t extend his guard spells any farther than the main room.”

I grunted. “That’s good.”

“Why?” Butters asked.

“Means Aristedes doesn’t have enough power to just burn you to cinders on the spot.”

Butters swallowed. “Oh. Good.”

“Doesn’t mean he can’t kill you,” I said. “Just that he won’t have a high FX budget when he does.”

“He’s fast,” Fitz said. His voice shook. “He’s really, really fast.”

“Like, how fast?” Butters asked. “Fast like Jackie Chan or fast like the Flash?”

“Little of both,” I said. “He can cover ground fast. And he can hit like a truck.”

Fitz nodded tightly.

“Oh,” Butters said. “Super. We probably shouldn’t fight him, then.” He set the flashlight aside and rummaged in the duffel bag. “Give me just a second.”

A shadow flickered by one of the grime-filmed windows. Fitz let out a hiss and clutched the bolt cutters with both hands, ready to use them like a club. Butters let out an odd little chirping sound and pulled a big, old, cop-issue flashlight–slash-club from his bag.

The shadow passed over another window. Someone outside was moving toward the door, coming in behind us.

I took a quick look at the flashlight and made sure I was standing in the light of Bob’s eyes and out of the path of any direct sunlight that might come through the door. I couldn’t do anything, but if I was visibly standing there when the door opened, maybe I could distract Aristedes, if it was him coming through. Maybe he’d speed-rush right through me and into a wall and knock himself out like a cartoon villain. That would make me look cool upon cool.

More likely, I wouldn’t accomplish anything. But when your friends are in danger, you try anyway.

The door opened and I raised my arms into a dramatic stagemagician’s pose. It felt ridiculous, but body postures draw reactions from human beings on an almost atavistic level. We aren’t that terribly far removed from our primal roots, where body language was more important than anything we said. My stance declared me the ruler of the local space, a man who was in control of everything happening around him, one who others would follow, a mix of maestro and madman that would identify me, to instinct, as the most dangerous thing in the room.