So, a lot of speculation about Justin has brought forward the idea that he was actually more of an anti-hero type than an evil warlock. The evidence to the contrary is that he thralled Elaine. The only evidence I can recall is her saying she was a thrall.

Now, if Elaine is truly Kumori and therefore an acquaintance with the extremely evil Cowl, she would have every reason to lie. It’s a great reason for Harry to trust her, especially since he would reflexively look for a reason that Justin was evil.

I think Justin was just willing to do almost whatever was required to stop Nemesis, including not treating his human weapons with kid gloves. Harry ran away and Elaine was left alone after the big fight. A scared and vulnerable teenager is exactly the kind of person a Nemesis follower would recruit.

As such, I submit that Elaine has been playing him for a very long time and that Justin is actually a utilitarian good guy. Also, I say is because Jim said that Harry was as dead as Justin in Ghost Story.

The topic of Mother Winter's cleaver got me thinking about something that always bugged me. Mother Winter has iron teeth and they have a lot of knives made of iron in their cottage. Previously it was shown to be incredibly irresponsible to have any iron in Faerie at all, let alone having it be part of a fae's anatomy. Im curious if they're so absurdly powerful that the Bane doesn't have any effect on them, because that would lead to some very scary implications.