In my peripheral vision, I saw Abby’s spine straighten and her eyes flash with a strength and surety I had never seen in her before.

“South America has the worst of it, by a long ways,” Murphy said. “But every two-bit power and second-rate organization in the supernatural world sees a chance to found an empire. Old grudges and jealousies are getting dusted off. Things are killing one another as well as mortals, all over the world. When one big fish shifts its power base to South America, dozens of little fish left behind try to grow enough to fill the space. So there’s fighting everywhere.

“The White Council, I hear, is running its tubby ass off, trying to hold things together and minimize the impact on regular folks. But we haven’t seen them here, apart from a couple of times when Warden Ramirez came by, hunting for Molly.”

“Molly,” I said. “How is she?” I dimly heard Mort relaying my words. I noted that he was doing a credible job of mirroring my tone of voice. I guess he really had done a lot of this kind of thing before.

“She’s still recovering from the wounds she took at Chichén Itzá,” Murphy said. “She says they were as much psychic as physical. And that hit to her leg was pretty bad. I don’t understand how your disappearance makes her a criminal to the White Council, but apparently it has. Ramirez has told us that the Wardens are looking to pass sentence on her—but he didn’t seem to be working his ass off to find her, either. I know what it looks like when a cop is slacking.”

“How is she?” I asked again. “Murph, it’s me. How’s she doing?”

She looked down and swallowed. “She… she isn’t right, Harry.”

“What do you mean?”

Murphy looked up at me again, her jaw set. “She talks to herself. She sees things that aren’t there. She has headaches. She babbles.”

“Sounds like me,” I said, at approximately the same time Will said, “Sounds like Harry.”

“This is different,” Murphy said to Will, “and you know it. Dresden was in control of it. He used the weirdness to make him stronger. Were you ever afraid of him?” Murphy asked. “Outright afraid?”

Will frowned and looked down at his hands. “He could be scary. But no. I never thought he’d hurt me. By accident or otherwise.”

“How do you feel about Molly coming over?” Murphy asked.

“I would like to leave,” Will replied frankly. “The girl ain’t right.”

“Apparently,” Murphy continued, turning back to me, “the presence of a wizard in a city, any city, all around the world, is an enormous deterrent. Weird things are afraid of the Council. They know that the White Council can come get you fast, out of nowhere, with overwhelming force. Most of the scary-bad things around, the ones with any brains, at least, avoid White Council territory.

“Only with you gone and the White Council having its hands full…” Murphy shook her head. “God. Even the vanilla news is starting to notice the weirdness in town. So. Molly wouldn’t stay with anyone. She’s always moving. But she got it into her head that Chicago didn’t need an actual White Council wizard to help calm things down—the bad guys just had to think one was here. So she started posting messages whenever she dealt with some wandering predator, and called herself the Ragged Lady, declaring Chicago protected territory.”