From the Doylist perspective, I think Butcher could have Harry start using a Way to the island, if only to eliminate the tedium of writing about the boat. Sure, it's been a handy plot device, but a permanent Way can be used the same way.

It also felt very contrived to me been PT and BG that he had to hand wave "everything in Chicago broke down except the old boats", "it took the Fomor a couple of hours to prepare their attack after starting the battle", and "the approach from the water was more or less undefended except for this random kraken".

My take is that it's the White Court vampires he specifically loathes.

• He didn't seem particularly vehement when helping Harry go against Mavra.
• He could tolerate Arianna standing in the halls of Edinburgh without righteous outrage.
• He tried to force choke Lara to death on-sight in TC.
• He went insane in PT.

I'm sure he doesn't like any vampire, and would like to see them all dead. But it's the Wamps he seems to have specific loathing for.

And since they can't turn anyone, I'd guess that they either ate and killed someone he loved, or the seduced someone he loved.

I could easily see where he had a wife, mother to Margaret, who left him for a Wamp after she became a thrall. Then he watches as his daughter allies herself with one, and (unconsciously) knows she's sleeping with him. Then he watches his grandson befriend one and (apparently) start sleeping with another.

That would explain it to me.

Also, not to be a downer but in Cold Days the magic is specifically described as mortal.

Not sure if it rules out the Grace theory definitively though.

The magic was performed by Merlin. The spells are like Harry's. But the fuel could be the Grace.

Just like Harry casting the spell at Mac's in CD. Or was his magic, and his spell, but it was juiced by the Winter Knight mantle. Same for his spells at the end of GP, where he used the power he consumed from the Nightmare to summon the ghosts.

I mean, when you think about a mortal creating a prison to hold gods, devils, and everything in between, he's kind of *got* to have some extra juice from somewhere to get it done. We're talking about spells in at least four dimensions, per Bob possibly more.

All I'm saying is he borrowed the Grace to get the place built, and then he put it in Alfred, who is the vessel of the ongoing Grace. He's effectively the Demon Binder.

And Mac made his decision and is out.

Wait.

Wait.

What if... What if Nico is hosting Nemesis, and has been all along? What if he took up Anduriel's coin, but has never talked to Anduriel? What if Beside has been pretending to be Anduriel all along, and Nico has unknowingly been working for Beside all along?

We know Beside has been around for a long time, we know he's not much of a fighter (like Anduriel is said to be in Skin Game), Beside and Nico have both tried to recruit Harry, they've both said the apocalypse thing...

Nah, too complicated. It'd only work if the other coins couldn't know.

Fair enough, but if Eb drawing in power like that had some chance of what you say, surely Harry's giant gravity hammer in Changes would do it on a much higher scale?  Physics is physics, but sometimes the magical rule of cool wins the day.

I would imagine it depends on the magnitude and method.

Harry's spell weakened gravity in a large area to increase gravity in a small area. It was an area of effect spell that had no noted affect on any other aspect of reality.

Eb's spell was so acute that it did a lot in a dense space with no regional compensation, so reality itself bent and twisted to compensate.

It's more likely that someone sent them, but I could also see Harry having an epiphany later with Eb where he realizes it was just because Eb we reckless in his method. That, combined with his reckless spell later that would have killed him, could be the case against Eb being stable enough for his job.

Eb is drawing in power.  I don't think his gravity is drawing in light (anything in the vicinity would probably be pretty smashed for gravity that strong to suddenly appear in a place).  The energy sink from Eb taking a big magical breath draws in light a bit too.

Magic in the Dresdenverse still obeys the laws of physics. So any energy sink powerful enough to manipulate gravity and light and the universe itself would, in all likelihood, manipulate time as well, however minutely.

He might not be trying to create a micro black hole, and he might not be trying to manipulate time, but the former fits the description of what he did, and the latter is a likely side effect of such an energy draw.

I'm not saying it's likely that he summoned them with that and his fear, but I think it could be possible.

Here's a thought.

Eb summoned them on accident, simply by drawing their attention by inadvertently messing with the localized flow of time.

   The universe yawed slightly in his direction as he
did, a subtle bending of light, a minor wobble of
gravity, a shudder in the very ground as Ebenezar
drank power from the earth itself.

Bending light?
Universe yawing toward him?

That's the kind of behavior one sees around a black hole.

And as we all know, dense gravity can affect the flow of time. Dense gravity that's strong enough to bend light would be way more than enough to cause gravitational time dilation.

So maybe it was less that someone sent them, and more that they were already in reality, and Eb accidentally did enough, between his power and his fear, to draw their attention.

We're so busy trying to fit the attack into the plot, when it might later be revealed that it had nothing to do with the bad guys, and everything to do with Eb losing control of his power, as others pointed out.

Yeah, I don't think "couldn't smack them down" is accurate, but the fact that it wasn't clear cut whether or not they actually had some small valid authority over him gave Alfred pause about whether or not it would be an appropriate action.

To make a metaphor, I think angelic grace is the original power and framework forming the prison, evil B.O. helps to power it and keep it going (like those finger trap toys where pulling harder actually works against you), and the genus loci is the user interface for utilizing it.

I'm close to that, but without tapping the Well to power it. I don't think there's a need for that if the build with the Grace was done correctly, and if it was an archangel's Grace.

If Michael borrowed a jumbo jet to use as a pen light, then I think Merlin borrowed a jet liner, tore the wings off, shoved the fuselage in the ground, stuffed it full of inmates, and used the engines to eject their oxygen up and out so they're too weak to try to escape, took a pre-existing shepherd of the land and gave it control in the cockpit, and slapped a headset on it, told it to obey whatever the person on the other end said to do, and gave it the ability to pick who was worthy of holding the other headset.

Admittedly that's being a bit literal with the analogy, but still.

Meanwhile the former pilot is Out of a job based on the Choice he made. All he was left with was the drink cart, so he wandered off and opened a bar.