Proven Guilty Mysteries

[Foxed]

I spent this last week rereading Proven Guilty, and I think I have most of the answer.

For the record, I think we must accept Harry's final conclusions at the end of the novel, as it would be a very unusual casefile if Harry didn't solve it by the end. So, the main plot is as follows:

• Molly comes into her magic.
• Sandra Marling primes Molly to use fear magic to cure Nelson and Rose of their addiction.
• In doing so, Molly and her victims become fear anchors for a Fetch sending spell.
• Darby Crane is invited to Splattercon!!! as a guest and a patsy.
• The main villain sends the fetches from the Nevernever to the anchors.
• When Harry attempts to send the fetches back to the summoner, they get sent back to the fear anchor instead, because they were sent, not summoned.
• The Greater Fetches bring Molly to Arctis Tor for reasons.
• Eldest Fetch goes to leave an incriminating corpse, Darby, as the summoner.
• Harry accidentally rescues Darby from being the patsy.
• Harry et al. rescue Molly from Arctis Tor.

There are still questions. And, upon rereading, I find the "Sandra=Maeve=main villain" theory to be surprisingly plausible. At the very least, Sandra is working towards the same purposes as Maeve. It is Sandra who gives Molly the idea to use fear magic. As the convention chair, she is well-positioned to invite Darby Crane to SplatterCon!!! I find Sandra working for Maeve to be more plausible, given how deep her cover is (runs a shelter and a convention, has been helping Molly and friends for months).

Maeve is the main villain of Proven Guilty. We can narrow the Fetch Sender down to two individuals, Mab or Maeve. (One can assume that Mother Winter remains too uninvolved to bother being the sender.)

"There are things strong enough to send them through from the [Nevernever]? I didn't think that ever happened anymore. Hence the popularity of working through mortal summoners."

"Oh, it's doable," Bob assured me. "It just takes a hell of a lot more juice to open the way to the mortal world from the other side."

I frowned. "How much power are we talking?"

"Big," Bob assured me. "Like the Erlking, or an archangel, or one of the old gods."

I got a shivery feeling in my stomach. "A Faerie Queen?"

"Oh, sure. I guess so." He frowned. "You think this is Faerie work?"

"Something is definitely screwy in elfland," I said.

"Specifically, [fetches are] creatures of deepest, darkest Winter.

We know that Lily's plan in the climax of the novel was for Harry to use Summer fire to draw Winter forces from the border so that Summer could assist the White Council in their war against the Red Court. We know that Lily and Maeve are working together, as Maeve traps the Winter forces in a time dilation spell. We also know that Maeve has been subverted by Nemesis, because she is by this point advancing her lie that Mab has gone insane.

It is pretty clear that Nemesis has Maeve pulling the strings here. Pulling back Winter's forces from the Gates advances Nemesis's goals. Maeve is clearly playing Lily and Harry here. I can only therefore conclude that she is playing Eldest Fetch, as well. That was the goal, to weaken the Gates' defenses.

I stuck my left hand out to one side of me and said, "Look over here." Then I mimed a short jab with my right fist.

"It's a rope-a-dope," Murphy said, her eyes narrowing. "A distraction. But from what?"

This theory, that Maeve is pulling the strings, and that Sandra Marling, Lily, and Eldest Fetch are all her cats-paws, explains much of the plot.* It in fact leaves us with three main mysteries.

1. Who hit Harry on his way home from the warlock execution, and why didn't his attacker want to kill him?
2. Who fixed Little Chicago?
3. Why Molly?

-----

WHO HIT HARRY?

First of all, we can discount Ace. I mean, maybe he's just an amateur, but it's also possible the accident was just a delaying tactic.

"You sure it was deliberate?"

"Yeah, but whoever it was, he wasn't a pro."

"Why do you say that?"

"If he had been, he'd have spun me easy. No idea he was there until he'd hit me. Could have bumped me into a spin before I could have straightened out. Flipped my car a few times. Killed me pretty good."

This novel discusses time travel an awful lot. In fact, I'm pretty sure it discusses time travel more than Cold Days, where the plot clearly relied on the temporal shenanigans it mentioned (the Demonreach explosion blasting backwards in time). And then, there's no explicit time travel in the climax.

There's implicit time travel with the note that Rashid sends Harry to kick off the plot. Except the plot kicks off just fine when Molly calls him. So why send Harry the note? Bob explains this best:

"OK," I said. "So what's the point in sending the message at all, if it can't change anything?"

"Oh, it can," Bob said. "If it's done subtly enough, indirectly enough, you can get all kinds of things changed. Like, for example, he tells you that your car is going to be stolen. So you move it to a parking garage, where instead of getting stolen by the junkie who was going to shoot you and take the car on the street, you get jacked by a professional who takes the car without hurting you-- because by slightly altering the fate of the car, he indirectly alters yours."

Rashid, by the note, is priming Harry to look for black magic. Without that priming, Molly would have died. (Harry admits he didn't even notice the tampering with Rose, and almost didn't notice Nelson's. Without being told to look for black magic, would Harry have ever seen it?) Rashid also interferes at the trial, stalling until the cavalry arrives.

Rashid saved Molly's life by sending Harry a note. A future without Lady Molly must be bleak for the Reality Defense Force, indeed.

There's another time traveler in the tale, and I suspect he's working with Thomas. It seems suspicious that Thomas is tailing Harry on this one adventure. But there's something I noticed once Thomas joins the plot: he does his best to remain uninvolved.

I glanced at Thomas, who was facing away, a little apart from the rest of us, staying out of the decision-making process.

There are other instances where Thomas basically wallflowers. He's very careful not to disrupt the natural flow of the case as much as he can help it. I think, like Rashid, Thomas has future information.**

Hitting Harry keeps him out of the apartment. I posit that Future Harry is at the periphery in Proven Guilty, and whenever Harry is out of the apartment, Future Harry is using it as his base of operations. Future Harry has Thomas as a knowing accomplice.***

[ALTERNATIVELY: Listen. Harry Dresden is unstuck in time.]

-----

LITTLE CHICAGO

Given all of the above, Future Harry and possibly his spirit daughter fixed Little Chicago. There is actually plenty of time in which to do so, as Thomas moves out right before Harry stuffs Bob into his bag for half the book. This covers the night Darby attacks Harry, Rawlins, and Mouse and the fetches kidnap Molly. It's a bit Azkaban as Future Harry knows he can do it because it has already been done.

-----

WHY MOLLY?

This is difficult to guess, and can seemingly only be explained by assuming Maeve knows more than she should. Either Maeve knows that Molly is Harry's best friend's daughter and a mortal practitioner coming into her talent, or it is an amazing coincidence that her plan hinges on. We know Arctis Tor was attacked by a rogue Denarian. We suspect this rogue Denarian was a Nemesis agent with a Coin. It's plausible to posit that Maeve and Nemesis sent another agent, the rogue Denarian, to clear out Arctis Tor, leaving the Wellspring unguarded why Mab was curing the Leanansidhe. And through Lea and the Denarian, it's possible Nemesis knows about Michael. But what about his family?

Gregor. Molly was targeted as Charity's daughter, and not as Michael's. We know she has Fae in her ancestry, and that this is likely the source of her and her daughter's talents. I posit that Charity is Aurora's descendant. Future Harry, by the way, isn't the only player operating on the periphery. Someone else is in town.

The sun had risen on our way there, though heavy cloud cover and grumbling thunder promised unusually bad weather for so early in the day. That shouldn't have surprised me either. When the Queens of Faerie were moving around backstage, the weather quite often seemed to reflect their presence.

We see this again in Small Favor and Ghost Story, where particularly frigid weather means that Mab is in the area. So, let's check out the opening to Proven Guilty's second chapter:

I turned my back on them and walked out of the warehouse into Chicago's best impression of Miami. July in the Midwest is rarely less than sultry, but this year had been especially intense when it came to summer heat, and it had rained frequently.

What the hell is Titania doing in Chicago? Combining this with Mab's assertion that Molly would be a better fit for Summer and the symmetry of a Winter scion becoming the Summer Lady while a Summer scion becomes the Winter Lady, and it's not unreasonable to conclude that Molly's Fae ancestry stretches to Titania.

But that doesn't answer what Titania's goal is. Fix and Lily aren't working towards it. They're working towards Maeve's goals. It would be a stretch for Titania to be infected with Nemesis, wouldn't it?

I suspect that Titania was trying to groom Molly to be Lily's successor, subtly, in the background. Maybe by nudging the right books into Molly's hands. I suspect that Winter's Queens knew this and were keeping tabs on Molly for that reason. And when the pump was primed, Maeve chose Molly to use as a fear anchor.

This is the wildest-assed guess, but I think it holds up.

=====
* Note that Eldest Fetch need not be infected with Nemesis. The two main symptoms pointed out by fans, his magic immunity and his more-than-a-simple-glamour shapeshifting are both explained away within the text.

I should have kept in mind how easily the Scarecrow had shed my magic the night before. The lesser fetch must have had some measure of the same talent, because it changed the tone of its howl in the middle of its leap, impacted my shield, and oozed through it as though the solid barrier was a thick sludge.

This thing was no fetch, no changer of form and image and illusion. There was no shadowy mask over an amorphous form, no glamour altering its appearance, which my salve had enabled me to see through. This thing was a whole, independent creature. Unless maybe it was a fetch so old and strong that it could transform itself into the Scarecrow in truth and not simply in seeming.

** Unless that's how Thomas always is and I've never noticed.

*** It's worth noting that I suspect Thomas is lying about Glau being a djinn scion. My only evidence is that Glau is a dead ringer for the Innsmouth look. I think Thomas was told to not draw Harry's attention to the Fomor because timey-wimey-wibble-wobble.

[namkcas]

We know that Lily and Maeve are working together,

We don't know if Lily and Maeve are working together at the time of PG. 

[Foxed]

Oh, did I not drop the textual evidence for that?

“That is one way to describe it,” Lily said quietly. “I would not, myself, interpret it that way. I had no part in bringing the fetches here— but their presence and their capture of Lady Charity’s daughter presented us with an opportunity to temporarily neutralize the presence of Mab’s forces upon our borders.”

“We,” I murmured. “Maeve is working with you. That was why she showed up at McAnally’s so quickly.”

“Even so,” Lily said, bowing her head at me in a nod of what looked like respect.

[Second Aristh]

TT!Harry in PG also fits with the idea that Rashid was only the messenger for the note about Molly.  Harry would have already known exactly where the black magic was coming from, but he would have to be very indirect to do anything about it.  It also fits well with the car that hit him was wizard-friendly aged. 

We don't know if Lily and Maeve are working together at the time of PG. 

Wasn't that established by how quickly Maeve got to the meeting at Mac's?

[Carl]

I have one problem right there at the start of you argument.

The idea that this was in some way a pot to weaken the gate. As was pointed out the last time this idea came up, this did not, nor ever was going to affect the situation at the gates, (it would need something that Mab and all her main army put together couldn't deal with and which threatened the fundamental power of winter to do that, this never came close to that). The only people affected negatively by this where Harry and co and the red court. The latter of whom are working with outsiders and so are probably at least partial allies of Nemesis. Whatever Maeve's comments on her Mother at the time her plot actively worked against Nemesis at this point. She might have been infected, but she wasn't working for nemesis at that point.

[Griffyn612]

I have one problem right there at the start of you argument.

The idea that this was in some way a pot to weaken the gate. As was pointed out the last time this idea came up, this did not, nor ever was going to affect the situation at the gates, (it would need something that Mab and all her main army put together couldn't deal with and which threatened the fundamental power of winter to do that, this never came close to that). The only people affected negatively by this where Harry and co and the red court. The latter of whom are working with outsiders and so are probably at least partial allies of Nemesis. Whatever Maeve's comments on her Mother at the time her plot actively worked against Nemesis at this point. She might have been infected, but she wasn't working for nemesis at that point.

I think the speculation is that either Maeve or Nemesis thought that by attacking Arctis Tor, and the Winter Wellspring specifically, Harry might draw ALL OF WINTER home to defend the castle.  Since the guards at the gates are Winter, maybe they were hoping it would draw some troops away, even temporarily, which might aide an increased assault at the gates.

But that wouldn't be the only benefit.  The entire thing also was a play at the long game.  It established in Lily's head that Maeve was trustworthy and different than she'd thought.  It set up the entire plot of Cold Days by establishing that they could work together for a common good, which was allowing Summer to attack the Ramps while Winter ran back home.

[Foxed]

Whatever Maeve's comments on her Mother at the time her plot actively worked against Nemesis at this point. She might have been infected, but she wasn't working for nemesis at that point.

Maeve uses the same lie she will use in Cold Days: that her mother is insane/infected. Maeve is definitely infected by Proven Guilty.

[Carl]

Where did i say she wasn't?

[KurtinStGeorge]

I was going to post this in a new thread, but many of the points covered in the OP are covered by what I have to say, so here goes.

Let’s look at some facts, assumptions and odd details that make what happened during Proven Guilty difficult to unravel.

Harry assumed that Darby Crane/Madrigal Raith was set up to be the fall guy for the phage attacks that took place at Splattercon!!! That may be true or more accurately, Darby was set up to be a stop gap fall guy, someone Harry’s would zero in on and by the time he realized his mistake it would be too late to stop what was actually taking place.
 
Let’s assume that Harry is more or less correct, that one of the two above assumptions above is correct.  Madrigal told Harry his appearance at the Con had been scheduled about a year in advance.  This means the phage/fetch attacks were likely planned that far in advance as well.

Harry made another assumption we need to examine.  He guessed the reason the Scarecrow/Eldest fetch took out Crane’s assistant; the jann Lucius Glau, was because Glau was in on the set up and could have told Harry who bribed or threatened him to accept an invitation for Darby Crane to appear at a new horror movie convention which would be held the following year in Chicago.  So Eldest Fetch was protecting the identity perpetrator of the fetch attacks.

This leads us to the actions and motivations of Eldest Fetch.  Was he just the oldest and strongest of the fetches, or was he Nemfected?  If he wasn’t Nemfected then he was following Mab’s orders and Mab more or less sacrificed him, probably to test Harry, to see if he was really up to being her next Winter Knight.  However we have this sentence in PG which seems to contradict this idea. “It was a fetch, I was sure of it, a creature who had been given talent or power enough to exceed its former status, to become the embodiment of the icon of fear mortals called the Scarecrow.”  Jim uses language similar to this in White Night, when Lash tells Harry that Vitto Malvora had been “given power” because he has been possessed by an Outsider.  We're not certain if that is the same as being Nemfected, but it sure sounds like it to me.
 
If the Scarecrow/Eldest Fetch was Nemfected, why would it have followed Mab’s orders?  Wouldn’t it have wanted to defeat Mab’s designs instead?  Could it have been working with Maeve, who we know was Nemfected and was actively working to gain Lily’s trust with the long-term goal of destroying both the Summer and Winter Courts?

Let’s look at another odd fact that needs to be explained.  Someone threw a ward in front of Harry during the first phage/fetch attack he was present for.  However, the ward didn’t stop Harry, it only slowed him down.  What was the purpose of doing this?  Either it was placed there by a weaker practitioner, or the goal of the ward was only to give the fetch a chance to do some damage before Harry arrived, to get Harry good and angry at what he would see when he arrived.
 
However, that doesn’t tell us who put up the ward in the first place.  It couldn’t have been Mab.  She had to be on the other side in order to send the fetches.  Even the Queen of Air and Darkness can’t be at two separate places at the same time.  Of course, this assumes it was Mab who sent the fetches.
 
Some people think Sandra Marling might have been a practitioner.  That seems unlikely to me.  She had known Molly for some time and for her to be a magic practitioner we have to assume they never had the slightest physical contact with one another, because if they touched for even a moment, Molly should have felt the power of another magic practitioner.  Harry picked up on the power of the girl who had Cassandra’s Tears; in Grave Peril, and she wasn’t anyone of real power.  Molly and Harry both felt each other’s power when they touched near the end of PG.  So I think Molly would have remembered that sensation if she had ever had the slightest contact with Sandra.  However, it is possible Sandra was working for someone else, even if she didn’t realize she was, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Sandra was the person who gave Molly the fear suggestion which encouraged the impressionable girl to use black magic to prevent her friends from using heroin.  Sandra sent Darby Crane the invitation to appear at Splattercon!!!  Sandra also got Harry to break up the police interrogation of Molly.  Perhaps she did this of her own accord or perhaps someone wanted Molly free so the fetches could grab her without interference.
     
Molly met Sandra Marling at a shelter; which I presume means homeless shelter, which Molly did community service at after she was arrested.  About the same time Molly was making herslf known around Chicago's magical community, at least among some small time magic users or magic want'a be's. We know Mavra used a homeless shelter as a hideout for her scourge in Blood Rites.  It’s possible she uses these types of places when she needs a short-term hidey hole.  Now you have to wonder why I would be dragging Mavra into a story when we never saw a trace of her in the novel.

Think about the next book after Proven Guilty.  In his final conversation with Lash in the Raith Deeps, Harry made an intuitive leap that the Black Court of Vampires is connected to the Outsiders in some fashion.  This is just a guess on my part, but I won’t be surprised if we discover that the dark magic which animates Black Court vamps comes directly from the Outsiders.  However, to get back to the facts, in the book before Proven Guilty, Harry threatened to destroy Mavra “horribly” if she ever threatened Murphy again.  She had to be impressed by Harry’s improvised use of her own explosives to annihilate her flunkies in Blood Rites, even after his hand had been scorched.  We know from Blood Rites that Mavra had been watching Harry fighting other monsters for some time without his knowledge.  We also know Harry dissed her and took Amoracchius away from her at Bianca’s party.  Do you think the egotistical sentient super-zombie is going to accept all of these things without trying to get back at Harry?

If Mavra became aware that Molly had any magic ability, what better way to get back at Harry than to corrupt the daughter of Harry’s best friend and at the same time settle a score she had with Michael for destroying what she called her children and grandchildren, twenty or so years before Bianca’s party?  She would also drive a wedge between Michael and Harry through Molly's use of black magic.  How could Michael look at Harry's use of magic with anything but disdain after what Mavra got her to do with magic? I’ve almost got myself convinced Sandra Marling is a fine thrall who was acting under Mavra’s command, but there is a major glitch with this idea.

According to Bob, a Black Court vampire doesn’t have enough humanity left in it to create a fine thrall; someone who can function on their own and who doesn’t even know they are a thrall.  Either Bob is wrong, and he has been wrong before, or Sandra was working for someone else.  Could Sandra have been working for Mab, and everything that happened to Molly, the suggestion to use black magic, the fetch attacks at Splattercon!!!, and her kidnapping, was part of Mab’s masterplan to get Harry to travel to Arctis Tor and learn about the so-called Black Council attack there?  I’ll put a pin in this idea for now.

There are other facts to consider.  Harry didn’t think the fetch attacks through all the way.  He eventually realized the fetches were sent.  He knew that fetches needed mirrors or a mirror like surface to cross over to the mortal plane.  He knew that Molly provided a beacon of sorts that the fetches could use to find the convention.  I think Harry was wrong about this last fact.  Molly wasn’t at the convention when the last fetch attack occurred.  Also, the fetches needed Clark Pell’s movie theater as a base to cross over to Arctis Tor.  Someone had to pinpoint where Pell was for the fetch Hammerhands to find and beat him to a pulp in the Men’s room at the convention.  Someone had to make a call that got Eldest Fetch to show up and take out Glau.
 
Just before Harry ran into the ward that slowed him down he said, “I reached out to the cold and gloom, and found it a vaguely familiar kind of spell working, though I couldn’t remember precisely where I’d encountered it before.”  This sound’s to me like someone may have been messing with Harry’s memory, or perhaps I am reading what really isn’t there.  I don’t think Harry ever felt Mab’s magic before PG.  He saw her preparing for battle but probably wasn’t close enough to get a feel for her power.  Maeve threw glamour at him during her party in Summer Knight, but I don’t know that Harry ever described feeling the energy she gave off when she was casting a spell.  Harry has definitely felt Mavra’s magic and its cold and greasy.  That’s similar to the murk that Harry and Rawlins couldn’t see through.  Harry said it made the temperature fall about forty degrees in a few moments.
 
So to recap we know Sandra Marling played a major role in getting Molly to use black magic.  If she didn’t have the ability to use magic, there must have been someone else at the convention under a veil; someone who could communicate with whoever sent the fetches, because someone had to pinpoint the exact locations to send them, at least in the case of the attack against Clark Pell and murder of Lucius Glau.  This person had to be strong enough to make Harry work hard to fight through a ward.  It was someone whose magic Harry had felt before and someone who is good at veils.

Now I’m going to stop and make a big WAG.  If the guess I made earlier about the magic which animates the Black Court is correct, that it comes from the Outsiders, would that give a Black Court vampire like Mavra; who has great long-range communication skills with her scourge, and probably with her thralls and Renfields too, the same kind of communication ability with Nemfected agents?  I mean they both might be able to communicate on the same magical wavelength.  If that were true, it would give a veiled Mavra the ability to coordinate her actions with Maeve, if Maeve was at Pell’s theater just waiting to step across so she could send the fetches over from the other side.

Still don’t like the idea of Maeve sending the fetches.  Wait there’s more.  After Harry rescued Molly and got her back to Pell’s theater, Lily admitted that she hoped that Harry might threaten Winter’s Well Spring and draw Winter defenders back from Summer’s boarder so Maeve could slow time near Arctis Tor which would allow Summer to launch an attack against the Red Court.  There is a great deal of information conveyed in the statement Lily made.  So much so that it makes you miss an important fact.  Lily’s plan was really; pick your adjective, lousy, dumb, idiotic, half-assed, incompetent, or simply unlikely to succeed, unless Lily was given some inside information.  Someone Lily trusted; meaning Maeve, tipped her off that Eldest Fetch liked to take it’s victims to the top of Arctis Tor near Winter’s Well Spring.  How else could Lily have thought that Harry would have the slightest chance to throw Summer fire anywhere near the Well?  Knowing how much Maeve hated Mab, I think it's likely Maeve may even have told Eldest Fetch to carry Molly up to Mab's ice garden prison to both sully Mab's garden and to lay further suspicion on Mab should Harry somehow survive his encounter with the old fetch.  Maeve gave Lily the information about Eldest Fetch's likely location because she calculated that the odds were good she would be sealing Dresden's fate by helping him go to Arctis Tor, but whatever happened the long con she was working on Lily would still be in place.   

I think that Mavra and Nemfected Maeve were working together.  If Sandra Marling wasn’t Mavra’s thrall, then she made a deal with Maeve and was working for her.  Mavra gets her revenge on Michael and Harry.  Molly dies, but not before her soul is tainted by the use of black magic.  Harry blames Mab for Molly’s death.  Maeve has more proof that Mab has gone insane.  However, Mab crossed up their plans by visiting Harry’s lab and fixed Little Chicago, giving Harry a way to track the fetches.  So when Lily contacted Maeve and came up with a plan to help Harry, Maeve had to go along with it and calculated that Eldest Fetch would kill Harry.

Either that, or there is my earlier idea that Mab was behind everything.  In that case Maeve went along with Lily’s plan hoping to kill Harry, and as part of a long con to gain Lily's trust until she could work out a plan that would destroy Mab and both Courts with her. 

There is one detail I haven't covered.  If Maeve sent the fetches was there ever a plan in place to kidnap Molly?  It's possible Molly's kidnapping was just an accident.  However, when Harry was talking to Bob about diverting the fetches to what he thought was their summoner, Bob told him that was classic White Council doctrine.  Therefore it's possible that Harry diverting the fetch's by sending out fear was  a move that could have been anticipated.  Particularly if the being who made the prediction was a powerful magic user herself, someone who may have been a member of the White Council before she became a Black Court vampire.

Yes, there is a lot of supposition in the picture or pictures I have just painted for you.  However, I don't believe I have seen any better attempts to pull all or most of the pieces together in a coherent fashion.  I will tell everyone that the reason I like Mavra playing a role in PG is she is still alive; sort of, and may one day get a chance to rub it in that she played Harry like a violin during the events of PG.   

I haven’t even gotten to the so called Black Council attack on Arctis Tor, but this is a good place to stop for now.  My thoughts on that subject might take up several more pages.

[Foxed]

Well, let's attack that from a Doylist perspective. Jim mentions Mavra exactly once during the book: In the beginning, when Harry and Murphy are discussing the execution of the Korean warlock and mind tampering.

But that's not related to the fetches. I feel strongly that Jim played fair with this book. Everything we need is there. Sure, the solution before Cold Days is "Maybe Maeve is the insane one instead of Mab," and not anything about Nemesis, but the info for that is in the text. There are no clues in the text to suggest that Mavra had anything to do with this casefile.

[raidem]

I'm more of the mind now that Proven Guilty had Titania all over it.

Titania is assisting Mab by constraining Lily's options and outflanking her when needed.  I'm now wondering if perhaps Titania fixed Little Chicago, if Sandra was an agent of Summer, Titania was aware of an assault on WInter and acted to take up some of Mab's duties.  It's not required though that Titania be the one who fixed Little Chicago.

Now, why would she do that.  Well, in the Disprove the Duck thread, I asked myself if Molly=Mab who traveled into the past, and Mab has a biological sister, then wouldn't Titania be one of Molly's sisters.  If true, she definitely would have an interest in preserving Molly's future and preventing any gambit against Molly/Mab that would greatly change or skew Mab's current identity.  This though would seem to suggest that the Queens know who they are, and can predict from this fact a great many things, particularly those of great import that must be done within the timeline.  Those acting against Molly and Sister are acting against Mab and Titania.  The opposition is trying to destroy this reality by changing Molly's or her Sister's, or both, future and consequently past.

This reasoning would be equally valid if Molly simply was Summer's choice for a new Summer Lady.  Titania wasn't pleased with Lily and she began acting to address this deficiency. 

Now consider, all attempts against the Carpenter's family whether that be Charity, in the case of Gregor, Nightmare, and Scarecrow, or Molly in the case of Artur Langtry, Convention Set Up, Capiocorpus, attacks on Molly during Ghost Story etc, kidnapping of Alicia by

[Griffyn612]

I'm more of the mind now that Proven Guilty had Titania all over it.

Titania is assisting Mab by constraining Lily's options and outflanking her when needed.  I'm now wondering if perhaps Titania fixed Little Chicago, if Sandra was an agent of Summer, Titania was aware of an assault on WInter and acted to take up some of Mab's duties.  It's not required though that Titania be the one who fixed Little Chicago.

Now, why would she do that.  Well, in the Disprove the Duck thread, I asked myself if Molly=Mab who traveled into the past, and Mab has a biological sister, then wouldn't Titania be one of Molly's sisters.  If true, she definitely would have an interest in preserving Molly's future and preventing any gambit against Molly/Mab that would greatly change or skew Mab's current identity.  This though would seem to suggest that the Queens know who they are, and can predict from this fact a great many things, particularly those of great import that must be done within the timeline.  Those acting against Molly and Sister are acting against Mab and Titania.  The opposition is trying to destroy this reality by changing Molly's or her Sister's, or both, future and consequently past.

This reasoning would be equally valid if Molly simply was Summer's choice for a new Summer Lady.  Titania wasn't pleased with Lily and she began acting to address this deficiency. 

Now consider, all attempts against the Carpenter's family whether that be Charity, in the case of Gregor, Nightmare, and Scarecrow, or Molly in the case of Artur Langtry, Convention Set Up, Capiocorpus, attacks on Molly during Ghost Story etc, kidnapping of Alicia by

My issue with this idea is that Titania was very clearly distraught over Aurora's death as of Cold Days.  And she implies that Elder Gets helped her accept the truth, but she still wouldn't help Harry.  I can't see her doing anything to help Harry.  She seems ready to watch the world burn.

[raidem]

And she implies that Elder Gets helped her accept the truth, but she still wouldn't help Harry.  I can't see her doing anything to help Harry.

Such an action could be viewed through the same lens that Harry uses to get Lily to help him via Charity.  Titania goal isn't directly helping Harry its saving Molly.  An action she can only do via indirect means with her fixing LC.  But yes, this is a rather  weak point and isn't required for the whole model to work as alleged.

I could see in Proven Guilty the following time travelers: Winter's contingent, Summer's contingent, Nemesis contingent, 'some fourth party's contingent.'
Winter-Harry, Molly, SOI?; Summer-Sarrissa, Fix; Nemesis: WC wizard, Denarian, Infected Fae;

[Foxed]

No. Titania didn't fix LC. We have three clear suspects if we treat this as a fair play mystery (not that I think there are no problems with any of the suspects, but it seems clear to me that Jim intends is to consider the following three):

1. Future Harry. There's plenty of time where Harry is out of his apartment with Bob, and after Thomas has moved out, on the night Molly is taken. My guess as to motivation is that Future Harry has his own goal in this time period and requires LC to accomplish it. And Future Harry, perhaps with his spirit daughter, would have the means to make the fix.

2. Lash. She states several times that she wants to survive and will not if Harry kills himself. Motive. She seems to know it is broken and can fix it. Means. Opportunity is slim, but she does affect Harry without him knowing (Murphy points out his improved lying skills) and implies she can talk to him as he sleeps. So, Lash riding sleepwalking Harry provides the opportunity.

Or perhaps, like the Ladies, the Queens are colluding

3. Mab. She seems mostly concerned with healing Lea in this book, and my evidence that Titania is backstage in this novel also doubles as evidence that Mab is absent. We've hashed out that she can cross the threshold to help Harry, and that she likely has the means to fix it. Perhaps she trusted Harry to stop Maeve and provided this minimal assistance.

[Arjan]

No. Titania didn't fix LC. We have three clear suspects if we treat this as a fair play mystery (not that I think there are no problems with any of the suspects, but it seems clear to me that Jim intends is to consider the following three):

1. Future Harry. There's plenty of time where Harry is out of his apartment with Bob, and after Thomas has moved out, on the night Molly is taken. My guess as to motivation is that Future Harry has his own goal in this time period and requires LC to accomplish it. And Future Harry, perhaps with his spirit daughter, would have the means to make the fix.

2. Lash. She states several times that she wants to survive and will not if Harry kills himself. Motive. She seems to know it is broken and can fix it. Means. Opportunity is slim, but she does affect Harry without him knowing (Murphy points out his improved lying skills) and implies she can talk to him as he sleeps. So, Lash riding sleepwalking Harry provides the opportunity.

Or perhaps, like the Ladies, the Queens are colluding

3. Mab. She seems mostly concerned with healing Lea in this book, and my evidence that Titania is backstage in this novel also doubles as evidence that Mab is absent. We've hashed out that she can cross the threshold to help Harry, and that she likely has the means to fix it. Perhaps she trusted Harry to stop Maeve and provided this minimal assistance.

During proven guilty Mab had taken over Lea's duty as a godmother so she had a clear motive to fix LC, as a Sidhe she could enter the threshold for that purpose as well and someone left that calvin and hobbes winter wonderland book in his lab.

She had an investment to protect. When she was in his appartment doing Lea's duties she saw what was wrong with LC and as a good guest and godmother she fixed it.