@morriswalters
I’m pretty sure Lea (or any other Fae) cannot accept artifacts that change the power balance of the Court without first consulting their ruler. Iirc, Mab says that Lea challenged her power once she had the athame like @Mira says. In the end, Mab is forced to take the athame as well as Harry’s debt in compensation to rebalance things. I’d be really curious about what happened there.
The Gatekeeper likely kills the host & attempts to contain the Outsider (perhaps to banish it back beyond the Outer Gates seeing as he & DR had a past disagreement (perhaps about an issue like this one)?). I’m fairly certain that once an Nfected host dies, the Nfection dies with it. After all, Mab did not seem unduly concerned about containing anything after Maeve dies in CD.
I’m also not sure that Whamps should be considered immortal. During the duel in WN, Harry explicitly says that the Whamps in attendance were entranced by Madrigal’s death since a typical Whamp is supposed to live for centuries. Besides, they are not true immortals since they can be killed any day of year, including Halloween.
@peregrine
I believe Lash says that Vito Malvora was “possessed by an Outsider” in WN. While I also don’t think that humans/ wizards can be Nfected, if I were playing Devil’s advocate, I would say that perhaps wizards/ quasi-mortals who get Nfected get a massive power boost, superhuman resilience & arcane knowledge? These are traits Cowl seems to show.
@g33k
Hmm not sure about that, the Aesir & Jotun don’t seem to be running around much these days (outside of Odin & his cohort). Hell, Monoc Securities seems to be functioning just fine without a Thunderer or any of the other Norse deities, so why wouldn’t Winter without most of its power (since it is derived through purpose in the DV) be able to function in the future without a WK?