Butters sighed. “I see what you did there.”

“I don’t think you do,” she said. “It’s . . . about choices, Waldo. About faith. You have an array of facts in front of you that can fit any of several truths. You have to choose what you’re going to allow to drive your decisions about how to deal with those facts.”

“What do you mean?”

“You could let fear be what motivates you,” Karrin said. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe Dresden is being turned into a monster against his knowledge and will. Maybe one day he’ll be something that kills us all. You’re not wrong. That kind of thing can happen. It scares me, too.”

“Then why are you arguing with me?”

Karrin paused for a time before answering. “Because . . . fear is a terrible, insidious thing, Waldo. It taints and stains everything it touches. If you let fear start driving some of your decisions, sooner or later, it will drive them all. I decided that I’m not going to be the kind of person who lives her life in fear of her friends’ turning into monsters.”

“What? Just like that?”

“It took me a long, long time to get there,” she said. “But at the end of the day, I would rather have faith in the people I care about than allow my fears to change them—in my own eyes, if nowhere else. I guess maybe you don’t see what’s happening with Harry, here.”

“What?” Butters asked.

“This is what it looks like when someone’s fighting for his soul,” she said. “He needs his friends to believe in him. The fastest way for us to help make him into a monster is to look at him like he is one.”

Butters was quiet for a long time.

“I’m going to say this once, Waldo,” she said. “I want you to listen.”

“Okay.”

“You need to decide which side of the road you’re going to walk on,” she said gently. “Turn aside from your fears—or grab onto them and run with them. But you need to make the call. You keep trying to walk down the middle, you’re going to get yourself torn apart.”

Butters’s voice turned bitter. “Them or us, choose a side?”

“It’s not about taking sides,” Karrin said. “It’s about knowing yourself. About understanding why you make the choices you do. Once you know that, you know where to walk, too.”

The floorboards creaked. Maybe she’d stepped closer to him. I could picture her, putting her hand on his arm.

“You’re a good man, Waldo. I like you. I respect you. I think you’ll figure it out.”

A long silence followed.

“Andi’s waiting on me to eat,” he said. “I’d better get going.”

“Okay,” Karrin said. “Thank you again.”

“I . . . Yeah, sure.”

Footsteps. The front door opened and closed. A car started up and then droveaway.

I sat up in bed, and fumbled until I found Karrin’s bedside lamp with my right hand. The light hurt my eyes. My head felt funny—probably the result of being bounced off of walls. I’d lost my shirt, again. Butters had added some more bandages and the sharp scent of more antibiotics to my collection of medical trophies. My arm had been bandaged again, inside its aluminum brace, and the brace was held in a sling tied around my neck.

I got out of bed and wobbled for a minute and then shambled across the floor to the bedroom door. Karrin opened it just as I got there, and stood looking up at me, her expression worried.

“God, you are turning into a monster,” she said. “A mummy. One bit at a time.”

“I’m fine,” I said. “Ish.”

She pursed her lips and shook her head. “How much of that did you hear?”

“Everything after his usual ‘I’m not really a physician’ disclaimer.”

Her mouth twitched. “He’s just . . . He’s worried, that’s all.”

“I get it,” I said. “I think you handled it right.”

That drew a sparkle from her eyes. “I know I did.”

“Batman?” I asked.

“He’s been . . .” She folded her arms. “You-ing, I suppose. With you gone from the city and Molly gone, the streets haven’t been getting any safer. Marcone’s crowd have taken up the fight against the Fomor, whenever their territory is threatened, but their protection costs. Not everyone can afford it.”

I grimaced. “Dammit,” I muttered. “Damn Mab. I could have been back here months and months ago.”

“Waldo does what he can. And because he has the skull, that’s more than most.”

“Bob was never meant to be used in the field,” I said. “He’s a valuable resource—until he attracts attention to himself. Once he’s been identified, he can be countered or stolen, and then the bad guys get that much stronger. It’s why I tried not to take him out of the lab.”

“The Fomor started taking children last Halloween,” Karrin said simply. “Six-year-olds. Right off the streets.”

I grimaced and looked down from her steady gaze.

“We’ll sort something out,” Karrin said. “You hungry?”

“Starving,” I said.

“Come on.”

I followed her to the kitchen. She took a pair of Pizza ’Spress pizzas from the oven, where she’d had them staying warm. They had almost settled onto the table before I started eating, ravenous. The pizza was my favorite. Not good, but my favorite, because it had been the only pizza I could afford for a long, long time, and I was used to it. Heavy on the sauce, light on the cheese, and the meat was just hinted at, but the crust was thick and hot and flaky and filled with delicious things that murdered you slowly.