No matter where the kid was from the trial itself is meant to cause the reaction it did, it primed Harry to react emotionally when Molly is eventually found out.  With this plotting. Peabody picked the site to get Harry in the mood. The kid could be from anywhere. Korea is exotic.  What he supplied was a gory death. This was the picture that Harry is meant to have in his minds eye when Molly is discovered, her with no head.

<shrugs>
Harry calls it "fire."
Jim Butcher calls it "fire."

Looks to me like you're "right," technically speaking... but there may be something else going on, given both in-world and WoJ testimony.

Hell, it's magic -- maybe Harry's magic is momentarily making nitrogen flammable???

If it walks like a duck......

It just sounds cool to call it fire magic.

I think perhaps the "evil vibes" defense were enough. They left, didn't they? You do not need to shoot a housefly with a shotgun, even if you have one handy.

Alfred likes a purpose. Plus... maybe he feels good about adding inmates. Under Harry he got to add Ethniu, and at least temporarily Thomas.  Maybe he can't jail people without orders, and he is reluctant to blow them away.

Plus, didn't we hear about a failsafe? I have to assume Merlin puts one in. I would.

There is a fail safe. It destroys the prison and the Great Lakes region.  Butcher is still channeling Aliens. "It's the only way to be sure."

Now what Butcher actually implies is that had the fail safe been triggered everybody on that hill would have been cooked since it was designed to kill gods.

Don't look at this too closely because there are logical contradictions.

Alfred wasn't stalemated in Cold Days, Mab tells you  as much. The whole bunch could have easily found themselves in either a cell or a grave.

Butcher has never explicitly stated what a Mantle is. So a Mantle is whatever we think it is. Such is the beauty of fiction.  And what Eb thinks about it matters not at all. He doesn't choose the holder. And after Peace Talks his judgement is questionable. What matters is doing that silly challenge and hoping that Alfred doesn't throw you in the drunk tank on level 3 for imitating a drunk. Which is a cute way of saying that Alfred is looking for something only he can see.

I always wondered about the etiquette in the supernatural world. How would you tell someone like Mab "Yes, you have my permission to enter my domain THIS TIME" without being rude? Or is it assumed that a permission is not absolute, but only for the moment, unless otherwise specified? Because that scene always worried me a little.

Butcher has been remarkably consistent on this point. You invoke a guest right.  That means you knock on the door before you enter or come in with guns blazing.

It has been confirmed as Maeve, she placed the Ice Spiders on the way to Edinburgh and then brought them to the island with her and Peabody.

Using it once confirmed Mab’s distrust and that door was thereafter slammed shut in Maeves face, exactly what she did with Nameless. Maeve had to mislead her companions to get them to the island, if they were enjoined by Winter Law NOT to use that particular way she had to get creative, or if doing so would alert Mab.

Mab guards the back door, she doesn’t use it (1) because during Cold Days she and Harry are at loggerheads and she knows Harry on the island has the power to win any debate, (2) it’s telling Harry something he doesn’t know, for nothing, not Mab’s thing, he has to earn knowledge in her book.

Arguing that the prison is separate to the island defeats the starting point that it backs onto Tartarus, on that basis the island would instead back onto an island in the NeverNever like Avalon. The entire island is Demonreach and the prison is part of it - no distinction has been made in the text, nor in any WOJ.

By the time of Turn Coat Maeve has been outed as nemfected. Assuming that she ever had keys that would pretty much have ended that.  Unless Mab is an idiot. In any case Maeve is as good as a candidate as anyone else for Peabody's partner.  But it doesn't follow that Maeve came from Arctis Tor.

Butcher himself makes the distinction that the prison is separate from the island.  You enter the Well through the door at the bottom of the stairs.

Oh no! Harry is not a descendant of Merlin. There goes my spiffy theory.

In all humor Butcher describes his job as telling very long lies and then asks if you would trust him. Here's the thing about calling your self a liar.    Why would I believe anything he says? I'd put my WAG on the back burner and wait for events.  If Merlin is Harry by the way, he would be the start of the bloodline not a part of it. He can't descend from himself.

So at least a year before the next Dresden Files novel, which will make it 3 years and counting since September 2020's Battle Ground.  How long before the next novel that's planned to push the overarching narrative along?

He actually tweeted The End in 2019 before deciding to split the book.

You missed that Etienne The Enchanter was a pal of Merlins, he created Bob’s original Sanctum. Thus Bob was put to work initially for ‘good’ and this shows the Original Merlin was still alive in the 1200’s, much later than thought, or at least was time travelling.

You also missed Harry’s visitation by Malcolm was not Malcolm’s ghost, suggesting Malcolm DIDN’T die by violence. Was it instead some ascension or apotheosis on the part of Malcom to a higher state of being?

Here goes Butcher rewriting history, again.