I agree in regards to the third eye junkie. It is as close as we have so far to a soulgaze of Harry. That scene in the book even creeped me out. It was a  touch scary, and i immediately reread it just for the feel and atmosphere.

When mab changed at harry's party, that was a great scene. We are going to be picking that party apart for clues for a long time. I like the idea that blood contains iron so no blood must be spilled. I also think we saw another aspect of mab, maybe even another mantle and that is as a judge of some type. We see the same look when she is summoned to demonreach by harry and maeve knows she is doomed when her mother appears. Maeve even says she knows she has been judged, sorry paraphrasing some there i believe i have it correctly. Winter law is harsh, the rule of not spilling blood at a courtly function is one i have heard of before, so i can believe it is just that a rule of courtesy, but as anything jim writes there are many interpretations and we may well look at it near the end of the series and see it as a huge clue, perhaps to nemesis infection, perhaps not. If it takes a blood ritual, perhaps drinking, i could see what the vampire courts would show the first signs, and it might even pave the way for people to be born infected. Kinda headed into left field with this so i am goin to stop there. The way jim writes though it would not surprise me to see the no bloodshed rules as being both a common courtesy as well as prevention of nemesis infection in one clue.

I suspect it might also be used to tie up council resources. Couple that with identifying the more combat capable wizards, namely, the wardens allowing nemesis to get a good read on how the council is likely to react in a given situation. From something like that response times and number of personnel in a given area and their capabilities can be ascertained. Create a big enough problem and allies get called in and marked and leaders and champions begin to stand out. Morgan and luccio come to mind. The captain of the wardens and morgan who almost got the red king himself. Luccio is lessened and for the time being cannot make any more swords and morgan is dead. All of those small things are adding up.

I really am not sure of the donuts, but i wrote a paper on norse mythology once. One of my favorite papers from college too, research was just plain fun. Knowing just a little bit about norse mythology i cant place the donuts, but in light of cold days the peppermint tea makes me smile still when i read it.

The walking stick comments might shed some light on mac. As part of getting a site declared accorded neutral territority there is an epic level weapon quest at the end. If mac is merlin or an archangel i can see him getting the walking stick, though it would still be a trial. Perhaps mother winters ability to use and withstand iron is recompense for it's loss.

Wild guess here. Have the brownies who clean the apartment been known to fix things? Depending on what the actual fix to lc was maybe they just cleaned something up on lc and it made the power flow better.



On later consideration i do not believe the brownies enter harry's lab, so withdrawing brownies as suspect. The brownies were a gift from the current summer lady though perhaps she can enter the apartment. She might even know someone with a toolbox that fixes things. Only being half serious here that speculation was just for laughs.

For the record my thinking is not very original on little chicago, i think lea did it or mab did it because of lea's obligations. Of course there is another wizard who spend a considerable portion of her time in harry's basement. Her skill set is entirely different from harry's as well. Perhaps she saw something that was intuitive to her that someone not versed in the subtle arts would have missed. For instance I am a prety decent hand at building computers but my friend bridget works for dell, she often fixes things i did not realise i had missed and considers them so beneath her notice that she rarely mentions it when i have something on my work bench and she is bored.