I just stared at him for a moment.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I know you were expecting me to share words of wisdom with you, maybe say something to you about God and your soul and forgiveness and redemption. And all those things are good things that need to be said in the right time, but . . . honestly, Harry. I wouldn’t be your friend if I didn’t point out to you that you are behaving like an amazingly pigheaded idiot.”

“I am?” I asked, a little blankly.

He stared at me for a second, anger and pain on his face—and then they vanished, and he smiled, his eyes flickering as merrily as a Christmas Eve fire. I suddenly realized where Molly got her smile. Something very like laughter bubbled just under the surface of his words. “Yes, Harry. You idiot. You are.”

“I don’t understand,” I said.

He eyed our beers, which were empty. That tends to happen with Mac’s microbrews. He went to the fridge and opened another pair of bottles with the power of Thor, and put one of them in front of me. We clinked and drinked.

“Harry,” he said, after a meditative moment, “are you perfect?”

“No,” I said.

He nodded. “Omniscient?”

I snorted. “No.”

“Can you go into the past, change things that have already happened?”

“Theoretically?” I asked.

He gave me a level stare.

“I hear that sometimes, some things can be done. But apparently it’s tricky as hell. And I’ve got no idea how,” I said.

“So can you?”

“No,” I said.

“In other words,” he said, “despite all the things you know, and all the incredible things you can do . . . you’re only human.”

I frowned at him and swigged beer.

“Then why,” Michael asked, “are you expecting perfection out of yourself? Do you really think you’re that much better than the rest of us? That your powers make you a higher quality of human being? That your knowledge places you on a higher plane than everyone else on this world?”

I eyed the beer and felt . . . embarrassed.

“That’s arrogance, Harry,” he said gently. “On a level so deep you don’t even realize it exists. And do you know why it’s there?”

“No?” I asked.

He smiled again. “Because you have set a higher standard for yourself. You think that because you have more power than others, you have to do more with it.”

“To whom much is given, much is required,” I said, without look- ing up.

He barked out a short laugh. “For someone who repeatedly tells me he has no faith, you have a surprising capacity to quote scripture. And that’s just my point.”

I eyed him. “What?”

“You wouldn’tbe twisting yourself into knots like this, Harry, if you didn’t care.”

“So?”

“Monsters don’t care,” Michael said. “The damned don’t care, Harry. The only way to go beyond redemption is to choose to take yourself there. The only way to do it is to stop caring.”

My view of the kitchen blurred out. “You think?”

“I’ll tell you what I think,” Michael said. “I think that you aren’t perfect. And that means that sometimes you make bad choices. But . . . honestly, I don’t know if I would have done any differently, if it had been one of my children at risk.”

“Not you,” I said quietly. “You wouldn’t have done what I did.”

“I couldn’t have done what you did,” Michael said simply. “And I haven’t had to be standing in your shoes to make those same choices.” He tilted his beer slightly toward the ceiling. “Thank you, God. So if you’ve come here for judgment, Harry, you won’t find any from me. I’ve made mistakes. I’ve failed. I’m human.”

“But these mistakes,” I said, “could change me. I could wind up like these people around Nicodemus.”

Michael snorted. “No, you won’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because I know you, Harry Dresden,” Michael said. “You are pathologically incapable of knowing when to quit. You don’t surrender. And I don’t believe for a second that you actually intend to help Nicodemus do whatever it is he’s doing.”

I felt a smile tug at one corner of my mouth.

“Hah,” Michael said, sitting back in his chair. He swallowed some more beer. “I thought so.”

“It’s tricky,” I said. “I’ve got to help him get whatever he’s after. Technically.”

Michael wrinkled his nose. “Faeries. I never understood why they’re such lawyers about everything.”

“I’m the Winter Knight,” I said, “and I don’t get it either.”

“I find that oddly reassuring,” Michael said.

I barked out a short laugh. “Yeah. Maybe so.”

His face grew more serious. “Nicodemus knows treachery like fish know water,” he said. “He surely knows the direction of your intent. He’s smart, Harry. He’s got centuries of survival behind him.”

“True,” I said. “On the other hand, I’m not exactly a useless cream puff.”

His eyes glinted. “Also true,” he said.

“And Murphy’s there,” I said.

“Good,” Michael said, rapping the bottle on the table for emphasis. “That woman’s got brains and heart.”