On that same note, could the coins be imprisoned on the island? (You may've already discussed--I've been in and out of discussions lately)

Thanks--B

In Skin Game Lasciel told Harry that the coins weren't meant to be "locked up" very long.  I forget her exact language.  It was something about how corruption can't be kept hidden.  I suspect the same applies to Demonreach as the Church keeping the coins in hiding. 

Also, it is possible that whatever rules Demonreach operates under might make it impossible for the island to hold the coins.  Maybe it could hold Nicodemus or another denarian but the coin might not be able to enter the vault with the coin holder.  I'm just speculating, but I wouldn't be surprised if this or some other mechanism prevents the island from imprisoning the coins.

The real issue is the lack of surveillance at any time before or after Harry became the Warden. If you're going to suspect whoever takes control of the island, maybe you should be watching so you know if someone's making an attempt and who they might be.

I think there are a couple of problems with this idea.  First, the island doesn't like visitors and there isn't a practical way to keep an eye on the island other than being there. 

I suspect the most important problem is, the White Council doesn't choose who becomes the island's Warden.  I'm pretty sure it's Alfred choice.  According to Harry, performing a Sanctum invocation is dangerous, so it isn't something most wizards ever do.  So the Council would be hard pressed to find volunteers to attempt to do what Harry did.

On a different topic, we don't know much, or anything really, about Kemmler's personal history.  Sure, he was super evil and crazy, but was he always that way?  Was there a time when Kemmler was in good standing with the White Council, like Justine DuMorne was once a Warden of the Council?  It's possible that Kemmler became the madman we know about after he was the Warden or while he was the Warden of Demonreach.  Having extended conversations with some of things locked up under the island might have done that or contributed to Kemmler going down the dark path.

I wonder if Harry will ever ask Alfred about past Wardens; so we can learn more, or if this is backstory information that won't have much relevance to the story going forward.  My guess is Kemmler's story; at least, is important, that it contains clues or information that Harry will eventually need to know.  The stories and fates of the other wardens might also become important to Harry.  We will just have to wait to see if I'm right.

TYVM!
"C---o" is pretty similar!  !n understandable mistake, no harm no foul.

FWIW, tho:
Cairo is a major metropolis; at over 10M people, it's larger than any city in the USA, and in the EU only Paris (I think) is larger (I suspect it depends on whether you're counting by strict city-limits population, or including suburbs); the whole "city smaller and far less crowded than Chicago" bit absolutely rules out Cairo!!!
Whereas "the Congo" is a region, generally pretty jungle-ish, with 2 named nations (Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Republic of Congo (mostly sharing the Congo river as their mutual border, in central & western Africa).

When you mentioned Cairo in your original post, maybe you were remembering that after Harry and Binder witnessed Lara beginning to devour Madeline in Turn Coat; and Harry rescued a wounded Binder from also getting eaten up by Lara, Binder gave Harry Madeline’s cell phone and it contained a phone number in Cairo, though beyond that there wasn’t any other information.

Though that phone number in Cairo probably doesn’t have anything to do with the Fomor, it’s was sure specific about location.  Like it might become important sometime in the future.  Now that I think about it, Cairo is right beside the Nile.  The Fomor could have had a presence there and could have been involved.  Though, I suppose this idea belongs in a different thread.

   There still is the issue of "true love" to get around.

Someone else already pointed out that Lara got burned when Harry touched her during the Thomas rescue mission, so I can dispense with that.  What you seem to have missed is an answer that you came up with in an earlier post. 

The one where you pointed out that Harry was good at manipulating others. I will add, even when Harry is consciously trying to manipulate another, he doesn’t necessarily have an end game or specific goal in mind.  Also, there are times when Harry influences others, without intending or realizing he is doing so.

In Blood Rites, Harry overtly manipulated Lara into taking out Lord Raith by telling her he could hand her control of House Raith and show her just how weak her father really was.  Harry wasn’t lying, but he implied that he would overthrow Lord Raith himself, not that he would only weaken him so Lara could finish the job.  Harry had a specific goal he wanted, and that needed, to attain with this manipulation.

When Harry told Lash that she had changed and might have a life outside of returning to Lashiel, it wasn’t part of a plan to make her turn against Lashiel at a critical moment.  Harry was mostly trying to fight back against Lash manipulating him.  He was trying to keep Lash off of her game and it only morphed into a plan when Harry was out of other options.

Mab believed that Harry manipulated Molly into becoming his loyal vassal, when Harry was completely unaware that Molly was a magic user.  Harry influenced Molly without realizing the effect he was having on her.

So, influence and possibly some manipulation without an end game in mind.  Where might that lead?  True love.  Harry can’t plan on that happening.  It is simply too remote and crazy to have that as a goal; plus, you can’t will yourself to love someone else. 

Speaking of will, it seems to me that Harry is almost always in a contest of wills with Lara.  That does requires some degree of manipulation on Harry’s part; largely for survival, but if Harry might be afraid of being in Lara’s company; being influenced by her, losing himself, I wonder if Lara might have her own worries about Harry.  Even some fears Lara might not admit to herself.  Lara might be compared to a tiger, but Harry is the guy who makes tiger traps.   

Let me put this in simpler terms.  Harry and Lara will be in each other’s company for a fair amount of time over the next year.  They are already attracted to each other.  There will be a lot of back and forth between the two.  It seems a good bet that one hostile party or another might take a shot at removing Harry, Lara or both of them.  That could be a perfect opportunity for both of them to be willing to lay down their life for one another.  I don’t think Jim is going to do this, but it could happen.

Imagine how much fun this scenario could lead to.  The marriage couldn’t be consummated.  Harry would be frustrated, as usual.  Lara would be terrified that she would look weak and be overthrown; and she would probably be correct, if it the rest of the White Court found out that she was in love with Harry, with her prey.  Mab would wonder why Harry wasn’t becoming more pliable.  Ebenezer and the rest of the White Council would now be certain that Harry was under control of the White Court.  Yes, I know Justine found away around this, but do you think Harry would suggest it?     

I assume Harry isn’t picking the locations for his dates with Lara.  It appears that Molly will negotiate with the White Court; meaning with Lara, on where these dates will take place.  I also assume these talks will include discussions about what Harry will wear in order to make the right impression.  Harry probably won’t like that and my guess is he will probably hate it.

This might be a question best answered by someone who lives, has lived in or has visited Chicago frequently.  If not, perhaps you have heard of some place in Chicago that you think would make a good dating location for Harry and Lara. 

Aside from places mentioned in the Dresden Files; like the Shedd Aquarium and the Field Museum, the only place I know about in Chicago is Wrigley Field, but somehow I can’t see Harry taking Lara to a Cubs game.  Peanuts, beer and hotdogs don’t seem to be Lara’s style, though I suppose I could be surprised.  I believe the Chicago Bears still play at Soldier Field, but again, I don’t see Lara going in for a tailgate party.

It is also possible that Harry and Lara will have to make an appearance at some kind of party thrown by Winter, Summer or another player in the supernatural crowd, just as Eldest Gruff had to make an appearance at Harry’s birthday party at Arctis Tor.  That could be a location for a date, but it isn’t as much fun speculating on something like that happening. 

Does anyone wish to speculate on where one or more of these dates might take place?

Dina mentioned in a post that she missed Harry being a PI.  That got me thinking, when was the last time that Harry; as his primary assignment or duty, had to unravel a mystery?  The answer is in Turn Coat.  Harry had to find the real traitor within the White Council.

Since that novel there have been occasions when Harry has had to do some detective work; like finding out where the Red Court was holding their big shindig in Changes, so Harry could rescue his daughter, but mostly Changes was about Harry rescuing his daughter and killing anyone who got in the way.  I'll bullet point the rest of the novels since then.

Ghost Story: Harry is supposed to find out who killed him, but he doesn't solve anything.  Molly gives him the answer.

Cold Days:  It's not a mystery story.  Mab gives Harry a job.  Harry wonders if Mab has lost her mind, so there is some mystery there.  Eventually the Mothers clue Harry in, but Maeve stays pretty much one step ahead of Harry for the entire novel.  It's her insanity that allows Murphy to kill the Winter Lady for Harry.

Skin Game:  Again, it's not a mystery story.  And again, there is the mystery element of what does Nicodemus want to steal and why does he want it.  However, Harry doesn't do any investigation; in fact, Nicodemus openly told everyone one of the items that he wanted to grab and we never do learn what his plans with it were.  Don't get me wrong, I like Skin Game, but there isn't any PI investigation going on in it.

Peace Talks / Battle Ground:  I was really hoping Peace Talks would feature the murder of one of the delegates during the talks that Harry would have to solve.  Of course, a murder did take place before the talks, but Harry didn't really do anything to figure out what actually happened.  Unless you count Harry saying to himself, "What was Thomas trying to say to me?"

I doubt Twelve Months will feature a major mystery for Harry to unravel.  Of course, I could be wrong, but at present my guess is while there might be some mystery element within the novel that Harry will have to unravel, it will be part of the larger story, not the main challenge of the novel.

Harry is no longer an ordinary wizard PI.  He's moving on a much wider playing field in company or close proximity of some of the heavyweights of the supernatural world.  His powers and responsibilities have grown.  Harry is learning to play games of protocol and to a degree he is becoming a politician now.  Not an elected politician, Harry is part courtier; when he is around Mab (Not that he likes it, he just doesn't have a choice.) and is becoming a supernatural political power within Chicago as its defender, the Wizard of Chicago.

This is all well and good, but I wonder if Harry will ever get to use his detective skills again to solve the major mystery of a story.  Not just a B plot or side quest within a novel, but the main dish, the meat and potatoes of a novel.  I'd like to see that happen again.  What do you think?

I think Molly was doing everything she could to hide her talent from Charity.  Seeing as she described to Harry (in Proven Guilty) that she pulled up a vail on her own without previous instruction must have made it much easier to keep her talent hidden.

Minor difference of opinion here, but I don’t think it was Charity not seeing the signs that her daughter was developing magical talent as much as it was Charity not wanting to believe that her daughter would develop the talent combined with Molly keeping the secret to herself. 

That is until Molly started asking other people; anyone except her parents of course, questions about magic.  Which reminds me, I wonder how much longer Jim will keep Sandra Marling in hiding.  The person who suggested using fear to keep a drug addict away from drugs hasn’t been seen since Proven Guilty.  She’s got to comeback sometime.  Unless we find out she was a disposable vessel or pawn of a supernatural being.  Unfortunately, learning that would require that at some point in the future a bad guy or gal will ignore the supervillain handbook and go into monologue mode and reveal to Harry how they fooled him and Molly in the past.

I think one reason why Mab might not want Harry to know the full picture could be the same reason why Nicodemus; though he hinted he knew about Nemesis in Small Favor, didn’t fully clue Harry in either.  If Nicodemus had done that, given Harry a fuller picture of what was happening, that would have led Harry to wonder what Nic planned to do about it.

We don’t know what Nicodemus’ idea of a solution is, but we have good reason to think it’s a scorched earth policy or maybe scorched universe policy.  Something that defeats Nemesis and all of its Outsider buddies but does so in a way that creates a maximum of chaos and despair for the next millennium afterwards isn’t something Harry would be on board with.

Mab isn’t Nicodemus, but she’s is what she is, a force of nature.  Mab’s preferred solution might seem; if not equally harsh as Nic’s plan, still unpalatable, to Harry.

So Mab prefers to keep Harry in the dark, to lessen the chance he can come up with a workable alternative solution.  Also, to lessen the opportunity for Harry to free himself from Winter and perhaps free Molly as well. 

Mab appears to have a plan for Harry that involves him becoming an immortal.  That sounds cool; on the surface, but I can’t see Harry ever wanting to fully discard his humanity.  Harry has limits; lines he does not want to cross, but by keeping Harry in the dark Mab may have calculated this will make it easier for her to manipulate Harry into crossing some of those lines.  At least the ones she cares about.

I've been thinking about Twelve Months and I think it will be a different type of story than anything we've read so far in any of the previous Dresden Files case books.  It almost has to be different.  I'm paraphrasing here, but on more than one occasion Jim has said that the story of every Dresden Files novel is the worst two or three days of Harry's life in that given year.  Except for the first three or four novels, which take place about only 4 to 9 months apart from one to another. 

Up till the present, all of the previous Dresden Files novels have had Harry playing beat the clock while facing seemingly insurmountable odds, but not this time.  OK, at some point in the next novel; probably near the middle of the novel, Harry will realize he is facing a deadline to accomplish some seemingly impossible goal, but almost certainly, it won't be like Death Masks, Turn Coat or Changes; where a Red Court vampire challenges Harry to a duel right at the start of the story, or when Harry has a wounded Morgan show up on his doorstep asking to hide him from the Wardens or when Susan tells Harry in the first paragraph of the first chapter that the Red Court has kidnapped Harry and Susan's daughter.  I'm guessing Twelve Months will be more of slow burn type of story.  The conflict or conflicts in Twelve Months will unfold at a more deliberate pace   

So, that has me asking what the through line will be; the main story, that will flow through the entire novel.   I suppose we could get twelve short stories, one for each month, but I seriously doubt Jim would take that route.  So, what will Twelve Months be about? 

We know Harry will be dealing with the trauma of losing Murphy and the general trauma of what occurred during Battle Ground.  We also know that Harry talked to Michael about reinventing himself, becoming The Wizard of Chicago; whatever that will mean.  Though Harry has always self-identified as the black sheep of the White Council, someone skeptical of the leadership, the quality of their decision making and even their morality, he has also seen himself as being part of the same Council.  Now he has to create a new identity for himself.

So, the above give us a couple of themes which might carry through the novel: grief, recovery and reinvention.  However, themes are not the plot, they are ideas which underlie the story.  So in asking what the story will be, we need to look at the elements Jim will be working with. 

*We know Harry will be going out on dates with Lara Raith.
*We know that Molly will have a role in planning these dates; Mab ordered her to set them up, most likely after negotiating with Lara or possibly
  Lara's proxy, on where the dates will be held and other important elements related to these public outings.
* We know Lara was caught off guard by Mab's declaration that Lara would marry the Winter Knight to cement the alliance between
   Winter and White Court; however, we can confidently guess that Lara will quickly realize she has been given a golden opportunity to firmly place
   Harry under her control.  My guess is if Mab makes an early appearance in Twelve Months and Harry points this out to her, Mab will respond that it
   is Harry's responsibility to see that this doesn't happen.
  Speaking of Mab...
* We know Mab expects demands that Lara and Harry will get married at the end of Twelve Months.  Does this mean there will be twelve
  dates?
* We can confidently assume the Winter Queen has been or will be setting up Lara for something else beyond being an ally of Winter.  Mab always
   plans for multiple possible outcomes in any given situation.  Possibly Mab sees Lara as a potential replacement for Molly, though that is just a
   guess on my part.
* We know that Harry told Ebenezer that he won't try to get out of being the Winter Knight unless he can bring Molly out of Winter as well.  Maybe
   we will see the beginnings of such a plan take place in Twelve Months.
* We can safely guess that Ebenezer will go ballistic when he hears that Harry and Lara are making public appearances together, that they are
   romantically involved.  The rest of the Senior Council and Harry's friends; maybe former friends, on the Council, like Luccio and Ramirez, won't be
   very happy either.
* We know that LTW will be coming back at or near the end of the story to tell Harry if he and his allies will help Harry understand what it means to
   be Starborn.  Whether this will play an important role near the end of Twelve Months or set up an important plot point in a later novel is anyone's
   guess.  If this element is important to the end of Twelve Months, I think that would likely mean that Outsiders will be playing an important role in
   Twelve Months, necessitating Harry learn more about being Starborn ASAP. 
   Speaking of Outsiders...
* We know Justine is possessed by Nemesis and that she is pregnant.  However, her pregnancy won't carry through the entire the entire novel,
   though it will probably be an important story element for the first two thirds of the novel.
* We know that Waldo Butters has the perfect weapon to harm Nemesis and probably drive it from Justine and her unborn child, without harming
   either one of them.  We can guess that at some point Waldo will become involved, but perhaps Jim will have Waldo preoccupied with another
   mission to keep the easy solution from being an option.
* We know Thomas is locked up under Demonreach, but there isn't any time limit on how long he will remain there.  Maybe a time limit will be
   introduced, but we have no way to know if such a thing will occur. 
* We can safely assume that if Thomas is released from his imprisonment, the Swartalves will still be looking for him.
* We know there is a "Men in Black" like organization; the Librarians, who will almost certainly have an operative or two in Chicago.  They will
   almost certainly be interested in Harry.  Being a mortal, he is the easiest member of the supernatural community; the ones with power, not low
   level members who hang out at Mac's, to keep track of and perhaps even approach.  Conversely, Harry might notice he's being followed and
   decide to initiate contact himself.
* Harry made a promise to the survivors of those people who followed his Banner during the Battle of Chicago, that they can come to him once,
  should any of them need his help.
* Finally; just to be clear, the earlier point that Mab expects Harry to marry Lara Raith at the end of Twelve Months does set up a ticking clock, just
   a really slow clock.  And also, not a ticking clock leading to an outcome as dramatic as Demonreach blowing up and taking half of North America
   with it or Ethniu destroying the mortal world.  The stakes in Twelve Months are much more personal and life altering for Harry than end of the
   world for everyone else. 

So, we have some potential for strong drama, some possible comedy on the dates with Lara and Harry; plus, maybe there will be some Outsiders besides Nemesis making an appearance, or not.  Then there is this new group, the Librarians.  A possible threat, but perhaps also possible allies.  Lots of possibilities but no easy to identify story here.  How do you think the story will play out, or more clearly, what will the story be?

I'll make this guess on how Twelve Months might start, based on nothing in particular.  Molly, or more likely a proxy she sends in her place because she is busy with Winter Lady duties (Also, because Jim will want to keep Harry isolated from his strongest ally), will deliver a message to Harry describing the details of his first date with Lara; where it will be, what he is expected to ware and so forth.  If Molly sends a proxy in her place, it will be someone like the Redcap who Harry despises.  Harry will be told on a Monday that date will be on Friday and he is expected to make a good showing for Winter.  Harry will brood about being used as; not a brood mare, a brood stud, for Mab.

However, Harry will be pulled out his self pity mood when one of the people Harry promised to do a favor for, shows up asking to collect on that favor.  Whatever help this person needs, it will look like a relatively simple task for the Wizard of Chicago to perform but will reveal a much deeper threat, not just for that individual but for many others as well.  It will be the kind of thing that Harry would have called into the Council when he was a Warden, but he can't do that any longer.  Harry will need to use all his skills and some luck to survive, make good on his promise and show up for his first date with Lara on time.

Maybe this new threat will involve Outsiders or perhaps a group of Fomor who weren't able to retreat to Lake Michigan and instead took up temporary residence in Undertown or maybe it will be Cowl or some major family of the White Court looking to take Lara down a peg or two or perhaps the Librarians will pose some existential risk we can't yet imagine.  It could also be some combination of these or other supernatural players. 

Whoever, whatever or wherever the threat comes from, Harry will only get a glimpse of it in the first month of Twelve Months.  He will need to use his detective skills to find and put together clues in the following months.  All the while he will also have to deal with Lara and Mab's schemes, unwanted interference from Ebenezer, his seeming inability to help Thomas and his own depression and sense of loss.

My alternative beginning involves Harry running down a clue to Justine's whereabouts, which misses Justine but uncovers something else.  Something scary, sinister and only hints at what is to come.

Now it's your turn.  Be as detailed or not as you like.  What are you expecting to see in Twelve Months?