She has ... the Fomor servitor .... I forgot his name.

His name is / was Listen.

Could be an interesting plot for Molly to cross paths with him again (say, in Peace Talks), now having the power to destroy him, but being forbidden by Mab to take the first shot.

I do not think he has all the ingredients.  When Harry explains to Butters why the Darkhallow happened in Chicago specifically, he comes up with a whole bunch of necessary components, including the ancient Native American zombies summoned from the exhibition in the Field Museum (not easy to replicate), the old ghosts following the Erlking, and the way the boundary between Earth and the NN has been torn up in the Chicago area.  (Which is done in GP, either directly by Mavra or by Bianca under Mavra's tuition - iirc the black barbed-wire magic is never pinned down specifically to one or other of them, but either way it is a thing Mavra is doing as set-up that far back.  I suspect that is also why the Stone Table manifests in Chicago in SK.)

One more piece of evidence that the object of the exercise is not to actually complete the Darkhallow at all, IMO.  Just use the prospect of completing it to lure a bunch of people into doing things that serve Cowl and Mavra's greater ends.

If they are teamed up though, Mavra could easily have duplicated torturing some ghosts somewhere else to stir up the veil. Collecting enough ancient hunter artifacts / remains would be time-consuming, but either of them is more than capable of raiding a couple lesser museums and combining their hauls.

It certainly seems like Cowl or team Cowl + Mavra aren't too interested in actually completing a Darkhallow. Yet Cowl sure seemed right ready to go through with it once Grevane and Corpsetaker were dead...

I think that only makes sense if the whole thing is a ruse; Cowl and Mavra had the Erlking book all along, they release it into the wild and get the word spread, and hooray, the White Council and the other Kemmlerites start wiping each other out over it.

If Cowl and Mavra were working together all along, how come Cowl hasn't just completed the Darkhallow somewhere other than Chicago by now? He's got all the pieces required.

Come to think of it, that's really a glaring question even if he isn't working with Mavra. He probably knows the Erlking summoning anyway from whatever copies he and Kumori tracked down prior to DB, and he had Bob long enough to get the Darkhallow instructions from him.

Cowl.
Cowl is Peabody's handler, like it was Madrigal's handler.

So why was he interested in collecting copies of Die Lied der Erlking if he was in the same 'cell' of the Circle as Peabody and actively running him as an agent? Why not just ask him?

Just trying to deny the book to the other Heirs of Kemmler doesn't necessarily make sense, because his strategy was that it doesn't have to be him that summons the Hunt; he just wanted to highjack the ritual at the end.


As for whether the skinwalker Morgan lured into the atomic test was Shaggy, I have to agree that the fact it treated Morgan as essentially just a job to do rather than a personal vendetta suggests otherwise.

Six of them being locked up in the Well certainly weighs in favour of interpreting skinwalkers as among the beings who can reform after physical destruction, but it's possible previous Wardens who tangled with them simply found it easier to imprison them than put together sufficient energy to overwhelm their defenses by brute force. If the latter possibility is correct, that might actually be the difference between the "minimum security" central area and the peripheral tunnels.

The thought of Erlking laughing while watching Sue go on a rampage is amusing to consider.

I would actually be really interested in his POV on the events of Dead Beat. I'm curious whether his change of heart on Harry comes from him realizing on his own that Harry confined him to prevent the Hunt from being eaten vs "to protect mortals" - which was an incredibly dumb way for Harry to explain it - or from Mab having a word with him.

Personally, I like the Granny Weatherwax definition of evil - treating other people as things. All the rest of evil flows from that.

Nicodemus is probably the worst of the appeared-on-page human characters. Shagnasty is more sadistic than indifferent, but he has less of a choice about it than a free-willed human.

Kemmler was probably just as bad as Nicodemus back in his day, too. Possibly even worse, but the brief glimpse in Fistful of Warlocks isn't enough to be sure.

I've heard the idea of him becoming a Knight of the Cross, and I'm iffy on it. It'd be cool enough if it happened, but I think that you need to be human, and Thomas isn't.

Mab said Thomas being in (true) love made him "mortal enough" to work as a Winter Knight, so I don't think species is that much of a restriction.

I don't think he's the personality type for it, though. Look at the number of times he's suggested Harry go take a vacation away from Chicago rather than confront some dangerous situation. He's more than willing to face danger to protect the people he cares about, but he's not as inclined to get involved when it's about strangers.

As far as I see it, the Fomor are probably pawns for the Outsiders. Their uprising was prepared to take advantage of what was supposed to be Arianna's plot to destroy the Council and overthrow her father, which means they're tied into the Circle with her. From the scale of the move they redirected to seizing Red assets when the latter fell, they seem to be mobilized on a full national scale to the Circle's plots, rather than just some of their members secretly working for the Circle as seen with Council and Vampire turncoats.

Pretty much the only solid information we have about their political structure is that their nobility are beholden to an Empress, but in some cases willing to disobey her sound long-term strategic instructions for sufficiently satisfying short-term gain. They're described as banded-together remnants of the dark sides of various fallen pantheons (including some close cousins of the Jotuns) united by their common interest in revenge. Given that Nemesis appears in mythology as the goddess of retribution, I've speculated before that their Empress might be a Nemesis host and the Fomor knowingly following the Outsiders in exchange for payback against the powers that drove them to the margins and for the promise of a place in the new order. Alternately, it's possible that their underwater court was close enough to the Sleeper that they fell under his mental influence.

Incidentally, the Black Court remnants have a similar motive to want revenge on the standing powers who screwed them over as the Fomor do, even if day-to-day they're mostly too busy surviving to act on such desires. I wouldn't be surprised if Fomor recruiting overtures towards making some Blampire allies become a factor before the end.

But in general terms, I think the BAT will be a collision of the apocalyptic agendas of at least Hell and the Old Ones with their various followers, with Ragnarok and a Blampire resurgence as possible components of the overall chaos.