At the top of the stairs stood two figures—an enormous dog and a little girl.

The dog was grey, shaggy, and the size of a bantha. A bulky ruff of fur about his head and shoulders gave him a leonine look, and his dark eyes were bright, his slightly curled tail wagging so furiously that it looked like it might pull him over sideways. When Mouse saw me, he made a happy little chuffing sound, and his front paws bounced off the floor, but then he glanced to the girl beside him and held himself carefully still.

The little girl stood with her hands buried in the thick fur of Mouse’s mane, as though she had refused to admit that she couldn’t just circle her arms around his neck and tote him about like a teddy bear. She was wearing an old T-shirt of Molly’s that read SPLATTERCON!!! across the front. The shirt hung past her knees and its sleeves went halfway to her wrists. She had big brown eyes the size of softballs, it looked like, and her dark brown hair hung straight down to her little shoulders.

Her features were a little long. I could see myself in the shape of her eyes, in the set of her chin. But she had her mother’s full mouth and elegant nose.

Maggie.

My daughter.

My heart all but stopped beating—and then it lurched into high gear in pure terror.

What should I do? What should I say? I mean, I had known I was a father and whatnot, but . . . now she was looking at me. And she was a person.

She regarded me soberly from the top of the stairs for several long seconds before she said, “Are you Harry Dresden?”

She was missing a tooth from up front and off to one side. It was kind of adorable.

“Uh,” I said. “Yeah. That’s me.”

“You’re really big,” she said.

“You think so?”

She nodded seriously. “Bigger than Mr. Carpenter.”

“Um,” I said. “How did you know it was me?”

“Because Molly showed me your picture,” Maggie said. She moved her shoulders, as though attempting to hold Mouse up the way she might a favorite doll. “This is my dog, Mouse.”

Mouse wagged his tail furiously and managed not to knock Maggie down while he did it.

“I know,” I said. “I’m the one who gave him to you.”

Maggie nodded. “That’s what Molly said. She said you gave him to me ’cause you loved me.”

“Yes,” I said, recognizing the truth as I spoke it. “That’s true.”

She wrinkled up her nose, as if she had smelled something unpleasant. “Are you mad at me?”

I blinked several times. “What? No, no, of course not. Why would I be mad at you?”

She shrugged and looked down at Mouse’s mane. “Because you aren’t ever here. Never, ever.”

Ow.

The Winter Mantle is pretty amazing, but there are some kinds of pain it can’t do jack about.

“Well,” I said after a moment, “I have a very tough job. Do you know what I do?”

“You fight monsters,” Maggie said. “Molly told me so. Like Draculas and stuff.”

Had Molly been filling in for me a little, while Iwas away? That . . . sounded a lot like the kind of thing Mab had done or ordered done when I was unavailable—taking up some of the duties of her vassal in his stead.

Maybe Molly was following in the same footsteps. Or maybe she was just being Molly, and being as kind as she could to the child. Or maybe it wasn’t as simple as either-or.

“Yeah,” I said. “Like Draculas and stuff. It’s very dangerous and I do it a lot.”

“Mr. Carpenter works harder than two men. That’s what Missus Carpenter says.”

“That’s probably true,” I said.

“But he comes home every night. And you haven’t ever . . .” A thought seemed to strike her and she pressed a little closer to Mouse. “Are you going to take me away?”

“Um,” I said, blinking. This was proceeding really quickly. “I, uh. Would you like that?”

She shrugged, almost hiding her eyes in Mouse’s mane. “I don’t know. My toys are all here. And my roller skates.”

“That’s very true,” I said. “Um. Not tonight, anyway.”

“Oh,” she said. “Okay. Molly says you’re really nice.”

“I try to be.”

“Is he nice, Mouse?”

Mouse continued wagging his tail furiously, and gave a quiet bark.

“Mouse is smart,” she said, nodding. “Really super dog smart. We’re reading James and the Giant Peach.”

I blinked. Did she mean that she was reading the book to the dog or that Mouse was reading the book, too? I mean, I already knew that he was as smart as most people, but I’d never really considered whether or not he could learn to do abstract things like reading. It seemed like a very strange notion.

On the other hand, he was going to school. Hell, I only had a GED. If he stayed close enough to Maggie for long enough, the dog might wind up with more education than me. Then there’d be no talking to him.

“Don’t tell people about Mouse, though, okay?” Maggie said, suddenly worried. “It’s a top secret.”

“I won’t,” I said.

“Okay. Do you wanna see my room?”

“I’d like that.”

I came up the stairs, and Maggie let go of the dog’s mane with one hand, to grab my right forefinger with it, and to lead me down the hall.

Maggie’s room had, long ago, been Charity’s sewing room. They’d cleaned it out and redecorated the little chamber, in purple and pink and bright green. There was a tiny kid-sized desk with a chair, and several toy boxes. The toys had all been put neatly away. There were a couple of schoolbooks on the desk. A closet stood slightly open, and proved to have its floor covered in dirty clothes that hadn’t made it into a small laundry hamper. There was a raised bed against one wall, the kind that usually came with a second one beneath it. There wasn’t a lower bunk. Instead, there was a big futon mattress on the floor beneath the bed. Posters of brightly colored cartoon ponies adorned the walls, and the ceiling above the bed.