Wow, so a lot about whether or not Nicodemus can lie. Which obviously he can; he's a mortal. It's slightly questionable whether Anduriel can lie or not, but Nicodemus isn't held back by the limitations. The thing is, though, Nick probably just doesn't see the
point in lying much; he's not ashamed of what he does, and he's very matter-of-fact about his actions. He's the hero of his own story. But he will certainly deceive others, and certainly lies throughout Skin Game. Huangjimmy's already pointed out some of the best points, so I don't really need to do too much here.
Jimmy - I agree with pretty much everything on your second response to me (the one about profitability) except for this last bit.
What matters to Karrin is this. If Karrin does not appear and wield fid, at that point, thus depriving Nick from his true target, would Nicodemous just sigh in regret and let Harry go free?
Obviously not. If murphy does not wield fid and thus granting Nick what he wants, he'll likely take out his fury on Harry. This is why I mention that fid's breaking becomes Harry's salvation. Either Nick's target is truly Harry, and Murphy wielding fid distracted him from his true target, or it gaves Nick his real target and allow Harry to escape calamity.
At the point where Karrin appears with Fid, Harry and Butters have basically given up on being able to escape Nicodemus' trap and have decided to fight them. Everyone's preparing for a fight, and the second Dresden strikes, they all die. If Karrin doesn't show up with Fid, then Nick gets personal revenge and Mab is obligated to replace him with a servant of equal competence - which she has. Technically, Mab could offer Lea's services, and I think that Lea would have a pretty easy chance of getting through the gate of ice.
Also, I’ve been thinking more about the ‘pro forma quid pro quo’, and I don’t believe that it signifies that both Harry
and Nicodemus broke the pact, and so therefore they cancel each other out. Yes, quid pro quo does signify that one thing is being exchanged for another, but pro forma is a statement that something is done as a matter of form, or as an estimate.
When the two latin phrases are put together and viewed in the context of the conversation, it seems that what Harry calls ‘pro-forma quid pro quo’ is the fiction that each of them are hiding behind. Nicodemus wouldn’t
really have betrayed Harry unless he killed him, and Harry wouldn’t
really have betrayed Nicodemus unless he had actually ushered him off to Michael’s house in safety. It is an exchange of an estimate of what would happen. Otherwise, there's no need for 'pro forma' in the sentence if it just means 'quid pro quo'.
Besides, it’s Latin. As Harry is far from an expert in Latin (dang correspondence course!) I wouldn’t take anything that he says in it as unassailable fact and interpret the scene from it. Unless he also makes lately and needs him a new laundress as well.
On a slightly different topic, I’ve been thinking of the Genoskwa’s actions during this fight. Nicodemus commands Gen to kill Harry and to make it hurt. And Gen… just doesn’t take the opportunity. Yes, it can be argued that maybe Gen was just enjoying torturing Harry too much. But he’s made it perfectly clear that he would enjoy nothing more but killing him. Why
doesn’t Gen kill Harry when ordered to?
It’s clear that whatever thing that Nicodemus is attempting to achieve, that this heist is deadly critical to achieving that goal. He would
not sacrifice his daughter, the person that he loves and trusts more than anything in the world, in order to just get a new supernatural artifact that he just found out about. If it’s critical enough to kill Deidre over, then I don’t think that there’s a chance – not a chance in hell – that Nicodemus would knowingly do anything that would rob him of the person he needs to get through the gate of ice.
Which means that Nicodemus wouldn’t put anything up to chance. I don’t believe that he would chance killing Dresden unless it was completely obvious that he had betrayed him, simply because he doesn’t
know for sure if the Queen of Tricksey Faeries has eyes on the situation or not. That’s not something that Nicodemus would risk on a job so critical. And by the same token, I don’t believe that he would give the command for the Genoskwa to kill Dresden unless he was absolutely certain that he would not. Because if there’s any ambiguity about Dresden’s death, then the job is off.
So when the Genoskwa does not kill Harry, even though given ample time to and commanded to do so, this strikes me as very conspicuous.
I think it was more than likely that Nicodemus had a conversation with all of his hidden Denarians – that due to the circumstance of the bargain with Mab, none of them were allowed to kill him. Period. That makes the most sense; if Dresden is to die, Nicodemus would want to be in control so that he could not accidently lose the retainer from Winter that he was owed.
