Earlier, I wrote:
... I'm unclear if Mab stepped in on something Maeve was doing with Molly; having the Fetch kidnap Molly may have been rescuing her from Maeve!
And now I've realized what was niggling at me: Scarecrow. Still unclear about Maeve, but... bear with me:
Up until Harry escaped from "Darby," he was massively overpowering the phobophages. In the hallway, in the movie-screening... It was Harry Dresden KICKING ASS (yes, some Lasciel-rage, some hellfire... but Harry laying some serious hurt on the 'phages (more or less as we expect Harry to do when innocents are at stake)).
As of Scarecrow... notsomuch.
And
that's when it was the Fetches, instead of whatever schmuck phobophage Maeve-or-whoever was scaring up (heh) from the dregs of the Nevernever. We don't really even know if they were faeries, I think -- did we ever see Iron used against them?
N.B. I'm not certain it WAS Maeve; but I suspect her above any others, at present. But whoever -- they didn't have Fetches.
Fetches belong to Mab!That was the point at which we
know Mab was taking a personal interest in things; actually giving orders and making stuff happen, not just wait-and-seeing. And what did the Fetches do? Why... they brought Molly straight to Mab, in the heart of Winter, where Mab could personally oversee everything else. Not what Maeve would have done, or wanted done; they were NOT Maeve's instruments!
I'm not sure who was running the first part of the operation... inviting Darby Crane to the SplatterCon!, making sure Molly and her drug-addicted friends were there, etc. (I do see, btw, the temptation to make Sandra Marling more than a muggle rando-horror-fan with minor flair for organization; but she could just as easily be someone else's catspaw.) Madrigal swore under oath that the phages, at least, were nothing he expected or knew would be involved (and I see no reason to suspect a lie); so those elements could have been Maeve, or a subtle pre-arrange by Mab to lure her enemies into the open, or... well, lots of options, really.
But as of Scarecrow -- Mab.
And if Harry was right -- that Scarecrow killed Glau first because he was the cutoff to Darby's controller -- it strongly implies Glau was Mab's agent, and Darby was also there by Mab's will.
Which in turn strongly implies that the entire operation, start to finish, was Mab's. ONE of her objectives was to unearth some hidden foes. ONE of them was to protect (and cultivate) her next Knight. I suspect she had an eye on Molly as an asset (possibly as backup Lady even then -- the Lea/Harry/Molly throughline is clear). She got to ID a Denarian (and maybe others; e.g. BlackCouncil wizards), and show Harry the involvement of the Fallen, with Harry then fingering the Denarian for Nicodemus/Anduriel.
Deep, subtle play.
Mab.