Man, listening to the audio book of Battle Ground and different stuff is sticking out that I just zoomed past while reading.
Here's another. It really stuck out at me in the audio book, but I zoomed past it reading.
“We have to answer for this,” I said quietly. “We have to help. The wounded.” I didn’t look back at the dark opening in the base of the Bean. “The dead. We owe them. You know I’m right.”
“That could be a tough sell,” she said in quiet answer.
“I’m not asking,” I said. “My fealty is a two-way street. I have gone above and beyond my duty to Winter, right in front of God and everybody, by doing what no one else could. Now Winter will respond in kind, by helping as no one else can. You will help them. Every one of them. Do it in secret, no connections. We’ve interfered in their lives enough. This will happen.”
The Winter Lady gave me a very long, very intent stare.
And then she shivered and bowed her head.
“Already you have bound a Titan. And now a Queen. Sometimes,” Molly whispered, “I’m very proud to be your friend, Harry. And sometimes you frighten me.”
Sometimes I frightened the Winter Lady. I shook my head.
The fae CAN'T leave a debt unsettled. Just like Mab had to repay Waldo for removing the rebar from her neck, even if it is held against her as a favor, the debt has to be acknowledged and balanced.
When Harry said he went above and beyond his duties as the Winter Knight, he wasn't exaggerating. Harry Dresden couldn't bind a titan. The Winter Knight couldn't bind a titan. The Warden of Demonreach can and did.
Winter has no hold on the Warden of Demonreach.
Winter owes the Warden for binding Ethniu, in support of the accords, and Harry collected. Molly has no choice in paying for the injured and the dead. Just as she has no choice in collecting on the favor Harry owes her for making the glamour he used to evade Eb.
Which puts a different spin on Molly presenting the envelope to Harry on Christmas Eve at the Carpenters. She's not giving a gift, she's settling a debt. Which clearly underlines Harry as an unreliable narrator.
Which, in turn, expands on the unease Molly felt when she left the house in The Good People. She isn't human any longer, and she thinks Harry knows it. She thinks Harry is the same as she is because he so casually bound her with fae logic and Winter's debt to the Warden of Demonreach.
