And it looked like Nicodemus didn’t like Mouse much, either.

“Answer my question, Dresden,” Nicodemus growled. “What is that?”

“A precaution against getting stuck in deep snow,” I said. “He’s training to be a Saint Bernard.”

“Excuse me?” Nicodemus said.

I mimed covering one of Mouse’s ears with my hand and stage-whispered, “Don’t tell him that they don’t actually carry kegs of booze on their collars. Break his little heart.”

Nicodemus didn’t move, but his shadow shifted until it lay in a shapeless little pool between him and Mouse. His face came into view again, and he was smiling. “It’s been a little while since anyone was quite that insolent to my face. May I ask you a question?”

“Why not?”

“Do you always retreat into insouciance when you’re frightened, Dresden?”

“I don’t think of it as retreating. I think of it as an advance to the cheer. May I ask you a question?”

The smile widened. “Oh, why not?”

“How come some of you losers seem to have personal names, and the others just get called after the Fallen in the coin?”

“It isn’t complicated,” Nicodemus said. “Some of our order are active, willing minds, with strength enough to retain their sense of self. Others are”—he shrugged a shoulder, an elegant, arrogant little motion—“of little consequence. Disposable vessels, and nothing more.”

“Like Rasmussen,” I muttered.

Nicodemus looked puzzled for a moment. Then his eyes narrowed suddenly, focusing intently upon me. His shadow stirred again, and something made a noise that sounded like a disturbingly serpentine whisper. “Oh, yes, Ursiel’s vessel. Precisely.” He looked past me to the house. “Have your friends begun whispering behind your back yet?”

They sure as hell had, though I had no idea why. I hung on to my poker face. “Why would they?”

“Try to imagine the Aquarium from their point of view. They enter a building with you, along with someone they would not normally bring along—but you have insisted that the police detective accompany your group. As a result, you walk away to a private conference with just you, me, and the Archive’s guard dog. Then the sign goes up, and they can hear a terrible conflict raging. They race to the scene as quickly as possible and find my people dragging you out of the water—to take back the coin you had in your pocket, but your friends had no way of knowing that. They find the Archive gone, her bodyguard wounded or dead, and you being apparently assisted by my people.

“And they never saw what happened,” Nicodemus continued. “To a suspicious mind, you might seem an accomplice to the act.”

I swallowed. “I doubt that.”

“Oh?” Nicodemus said. “Even though you’re about to propose giving me back the coins you took at the Aquarium? Eleven coins, Dresden. Should I recover them, everything you and your people have done during the past few days will mean nothing. I’ll be just as strong and possess the power of the Archive to boot. It is hardly a stretch to consider that you would be ideally positioned to betray them at a critical moment—which this is.”