Proven Guilty speculation, because, why not?

[morriswalters]

Reading through some old threads and discovered a quote.

I reached out to the cold and the gloom, and found it a vaguely familiar kind of spellworking, though I couldn’t remember precisely where I’d encountered it before.

This happens in Chapter 12 of Proven Guilty.  There is a temperature drop and a ward slowing Harry down as well as a murk.

Fast reverse back to Summer Knight. To Harry's meeting with Maeve in undertown.

Maeve drew herself up, her face shining with a sudden terrible beauty. She lifted her right hand, ring finger and thumb both bent, and murmured something in a liquid, alien tongue. Sudden blue light gathered around her fingers, and the temperature in the room dropped by about forty degrees. She spoke again, and flicked her wrist, sending glowing motes of azure flickering toward Slate.
The snowflake brand flared into sudden light, and Slate's advance halted, his body going rigid. The skin around the brand turned blue, then purple, then black, spreading like a stop-motion enhanced film of gangrene. A quiet snarl slipped from Slate's lips, and I could see his body trembling with the effort to continue toward Maeve. He shuddered and took another step forward.

Now tie that in with the murk in Small Favor, in the train station.  Add to that, prior to that event the phages entered Chicago through mirrors.  How did they get into the screening room?

Myself, I'm gonna go with Maeve as Sandra Marling.  And another interesting tidbit  Molly walks away from Harry at the end of Skin Games using a cell phone.  Which made be think of Sandra Marling waving her phone.  Probably wrong but I'm feeling happy today.

Happy Peace Talks

[KurtinStGeorge]

The only way we will see Maeve again is if Harry is involved in some time travel shenanigans.  However, Proven Guilty is exactly the book where that would seem a reasonable possibility, so your hypothesis may have some merit; but my guess is you've missed the mark by a wide margin.  Meaning, while I think that it's possible Maeve was involved in the events of PG, I don't think she was pretending to be Sandra Marling. 

Remember the amount of time and effort that was needed by Sandra Marling to set up Splattercon and to draw Molly into her sphere of influence.  Maeve was far too lazy to do either of those two things, but more than that she despised mortals and wouldn't lower herself to pretend to be one for any extended length of time, plus I seriously doubt she would have had the skill set needed to organize a human endeavour such as a Con; and finally, she had no reason to want to corrupt Molly.  Mavra or even the Denarians are better suspects for attempting to corrupt Molly.

To reiterate, it wouldn't shock me if we discover Maeve was working in the background during PG.  In a time travel story we might even be shown how Mab learned her daughter was nemfected.  Jim might do this to explain exactly what and why Mab did what she did, before and during PG.

[Bad Alias]

How did they get into the screening room?

I think Molly's friend checked her makeup using the mirror in her compact. (Someone did, I just can't remember who it was).

The temperature could have dropped just because it was Winter fairies. I was thinking that we have only seen that sort of thing with the Knights and Queens, but I remembered that the temperature changed in Small Favor when Summer kelpies came after Dresden on Lake Michigan.

[morriswalters]

I think Molly's friend checked her makeup using the mirror in her compact. (Someone did, I just can't remember who it was).

You are correct. So there was a mirror.

@KurtinStGeorge
I may well be wide of the mark.  And if I had a copy of Peace Talks in font of my face we wouldn't be talking.  But I don't, so I'll defend. 

Somebody is throwing some serious magic around, a fairly strong ward and a myrk.  And while Molly was the beacon she wasn't the summoner. If you assume that Sandra Marling was a thrall, that leaves someone in the background that can use magic, and was at the con both times.  I would like to believe Jim doesn't use characters who never show up in the book doing things so overt.  Two international women of mystery is one too many.  The Fae are the only ones who can  use magic and can carry off glamours and are undetectable as magic users.  And Ladies can summon denizens of Faerie.

[nadia.skylark]

The Fae are the only ones who can  use magic and can carry off glamours and are undetectable as magic users.

What? I'm confused. As far as I understand:

1) Lots of people can use magic,
2) Illusion magic is definitely a thing that non-faeries can do, and
3) Faeries are not noted as being specifically undetectable to magic-users.

[g33k]

What? I'm confused. As far as I understand:

1) Lots of people can use magic,
2) Illusion magic is definitely a thing that non-faeries can do, and
3) Faeries are not noted as being specifically undetectable to magic-users.

Mortal practitioners detect one another at touch, detecting rough power-levels, e.g. from a handshake or any other skin-contact.  Faeries can shake mortals' hands without being detected.

OTOH, Fae are generally pretty bad at "passing for mortal" for more than a few moments.  They tend to be too beautiful, or too ugly, or too odd... just "too" something.
 

[morriswalters]

@nadia.skylark
The point of this is that in the books we normally see all the players who directly act.  Who was the summoner?

@g33k
Jenny Greenteeth manages to pass for Georgia well enough.

@Bad Alias
The fetches appear multiple times, but in the bathroom there is never a temperature drop mentioned.

[nadia.skylark]

Mortal practitioners detect one another at touch, detecting rough power-levels, e.g. from a handshake or any other skin-contact.  Faeries can shake mortals' hands without being detected.

I'm trying to remember a time in one of the books where Harry shook a faerie's hand and didn't realize what they were, but I'm drawing a blank. Was it Aurora? I'd thought he had his hands full with Elaine when they met.

The point of this is that in the books we normally see all the players who directly act.  Who was the summoner?

I know that bit. What I was confused about was where the idea that the fae are the only beings who can use magic and illusions without being detectible.

As I recall, Harry usually detects faeries pretty fast when they're around.

[Bad Alias]

And if I had a copy of Peace Talks in font of my face we wouldn't be talking.  But I don't, so I'll defend. 

This is one of the things I love about reading your posts.

The fetches appear multiple times, but in the bathroom there is never a temperature drop mentioned.

Two of the witnesses aren't in great shape. You have Pell who can barely talk and Nelson who is going crazy. Did Rawlins get there in time to notice such a thing? Would he notice? But yes, that's a good point.

I'm not sure what makes the temperature change when Summer/Winter shows up. We've only seen it with the Knights, the Queens, whatever happened here, and in Small Favor with the kelpies, but we've seen Summer and Winter forces much more often than that. I'd say we don't have enough information to even attempt to draw conclusions, but I don't have a copy of Peace Talks either.

[morriswalters]

This is the worst time for me.  The last mile so to speak. The drug is close, I can see the dealer walking down the street.

The difference between the attacks is striking, two are general and one is specific.  In the bathroom attack the creatures come in, disable Pell and then leave.  They don't kill him and they don't leave the bathroom.  Doesn't that strike you as strange?  No temperature change.  More like somebody was watching the mirrors from the other side and were waiting for Pell.  And they hurt him enough to make sure the theater was unoccupied, but left him alive so that the nature of the place wouldn't change and shift the portal.  These apparently were sent from the other side.

The other attacks seemed to have required a summoner, someone who called the fetches to a place to wreak havoc and murder. So I theorize that the fetches  came in through a portal and the temperature drop represents the cold of Winter or the Cold of someone using Winter magic.

@nadia.skylark

About the magic.  Any number of things can use magic in the books, but either you posit an off page actor who is never exposed in the book or you posit someone in the book whose identity is concealed.  In the first murder attack someone uses a ward and maybe a myrk.  In the second someone disables the lights and alarms.  If not Marling then who else in the book could it be, and who ran from the screening room?

[Bad Alias]

This is the worst time for me.  The last mile so to speak. The drug is close, I can see the dealer walking down the street.

Let's try to get a list of the attacks and the details of them.

These are the ones I recall:

1. Pell in the bathroom.
2. The screening room.
3. The scarecrow in the parking lot.
4. The final attack where the alien slips through Harry's web. Did that start in the kitchen?

1 and 3 are clearly targeted attacks. The purpose of 1 is to secure access to the way at the theater. Harry thinks the purpose of 3 is to kill Glau.

2 could have been to grab Molly, but I don't see it unless the fetch went off mission. I also don't see the purpose of 4 unless we assume that it was known that Harry would successfully send the fetches to Molly.

What are the known characteristics of the attacks?

The other attacks seemed to have required a summoner, someone who called the fetches to a place to wreak havoc and murder.

Weren't they sent, not summoned?

[g33k]

...
@g33k
Jenny Greenteeth manages to pass for Georgia well enough.
...

True.  I'll argue that this was an exceptional case.  Since she was not just "playing mortal" but playing a specific mortal, I bet there was some very-specific magic involved.

It takes Harry just a few minutes in Summer Knight to see through Mab's disguise (part of it was Harry just being a good PI, deducing things; but part of it was spotting odd non-mortal discrepancies); he realized that "Grum" was fae just moments after the conflict began (betting his best shot on an iron nail to do more damage than the wound otherwise would).

Harry remarks -- several times -- that most faeries (most supernaturals, in general) don't do "mortal" well at all.

I bet Jenny is just an individual with exceptionally-good mortal-ish glamour, and/or that some specific body-double magic made for a better rendition of "mortal."

[morriswalters]

Let's try to get a list of the attacks and the details of them.

These are the ones I recall:

1. Pell in the bathroom.
2. The screening room.
3. The scarecrow in the parking lot.
4. The final attack where the alien slips through Harry's web. Did that start in the kitchen?

1 and 3 are clearly targeted attacks. The purpose of 1 is to secure access to the way at the theater. Harry thinks the purpose of 3 is to kill Glau.

2 could have been to grab Molly, but I don't see it unless the fetch went off mission. I also don't see the purpose of 4 unless we assume that it was known that Harry would successfully send the fetches to Molly.

What are the known characteristics of the attacks?

Weren't they sent, not summoned?

Know them by what they accomplished.  Putting aside the targeted attacks, of 1 and 3 for a moment. If they were sent rather than summoned who used the ward and the myrk against Harry and Rawlins?  The myrk would have been effective at neutralizing Rawlins, the ward was aimed at Harry, specifically.  That puts a magic user in the room, and we get a flash of them.  They were summoned.  This keeps it simple, otherwise you have someone of both sides.  This is Harry getting beat over the head with a stupid stick.  Hey Gorilla, lookee here.  Magic and fetches.  Which sets up the 4th attack.  Harry is predictable.  The attacker has him under a stupid spell, Harry will do what he does, attempt to turn the table on the summoner and send the fetches after who he assumes is both the beacon and the summoner.  Since the spell is locked to the beacon the fetches go straight to her.

“Sure,” Bob said. “I mean, you have everything you need for that. You know the phages are after fear, and that they’re probably using his power as a beacon. Your web tells you something is stirring. You conjure up a big ball of fear, target the same beacon the phages are using, and let it fly.”

Under interesting side notes.  Who could know that LC was defective and could kill Harry?  Certainly the Mothers.  When Harry is shown the Outer Gates the Mothers see multiple possibilities brought on by doing so.  We can assume they could see the effects of Harry's death using LC.  Vadderung tells us that it is better to change the future then attempt to change the past.  So if Harry is important to them, then they would send in someone to do the fix before the future becomes the past.  Yea Mab.
And just for fun Do the Outer Gates share a lot of the functionality of LC?

[nadia.skylark]

About the magic.  Any number of things can use magic in the books, but either you posit an off page actor who is never exposed in the book or you posit someone in the book whose identity is concealed.  In the first murder attack someone uses a ward and maybe a myrk.  In the second someone disables the lights and alarms.  If not Marling then who else in the book could it be, and who ran from the screening room?

I think it's completely reasonable that it was Marling.

I think it's reasonable that Marling was a faerie.

I do not think it's reasonable to claim that faeries are the only beings capable of using illusion magic without detection.

[morriswalters]

I do not think it's reasonable to claim that faeries are the only beings capable of using illusion magic without detection.

Ok,who?