Well, he has if you go by how he has used the term so far in the series, Jim has told us exactly what it means and how he wants to use the term.  Mantle, with the exception of how Eb used in reference to the Warden of the Island, is the "Fae power" for lack of a better term that pertains to the Queen vessels, Lady vessels, and Knight vessels of both Courts, when on vessel dies it moves and occupies the nearest suitable vessel.

WOJ's seem to indicate the Blackstaff would also choose a new bearer in the event of the previous holder's death - although they also get more of a choice whether to take it up than we've seen with the Lady mantles.

I tend to find the fact that it's OK for the Warden position not to be filled for an extended period suggestive of it not being a real mantle. With the Fae mantles, even when it returns to the nearest Queen on the death of a previous knight, there's strong pressure on her to bestow it on another mortal asap. If the Wardenship is parked with Alfred, he doesn't seem to feel any corresponding hurry to replace Wardens.

On the other hand, holding the Wardenship has changed Harry - the partial intellectus and the changes in his shield and staff colours. There's something to it. Perhaps Merlin (with Alfred's help?) made some sort of construct in imitation of the faerie mantles even though it isn't quite the same thing.

I think it was just, "we'll see her again" not necessarily "at the end" ...  OTOH, Jim might decide it would make a nice "bookend" for the Casefiles of Harry Dresden!

Wasn't (grown up) Faith Astor supposed to be the femme fatale client who kicks off the BAT?

She is there, she is a source of information, more so than Bob, more importantly, and it is easy to miss, she is becoming Lash.

She also noticed hints that Molly was crushing on Harry at the time, which ends up being relevant.

Do we know if Harry's housekeeping brownies were Summer or Winter Fae?  If they were Winter, then I'd say Mab fixed LC as part of Lea's godmothering. Since Lea watched Harry's place foe enemies, it would have been simple for her to enter a a benign fae while Harry and Bob were out just like the cleaners do. Mab did the same while covering for Lea and spotted and fixed the flaw .

The brownies were Summer - a boon from Lily for saving her at the end of Summer Knight.

Lea and Mab are equally free to walk right into his home as benevolent visitors too, though.

If Lash sabotaged Little Chicago / hid Harry's own mistake from him with the intent to blow it up in his face, why was she busting her ass to stop him from using it? Why would she want to kill the host she still had every expectation of turning?

I don't think Nic and co were monitoring her all that closely, or necessarily even had the capacity to give Lash orders remotely. The Shadow is sort of a fire-and-forget weapon. Harry picked it up; he'll convert eventually - that was considered a 100% certainty until Harry showed he'd resisted in SmF. Nic didn't see a need to micromanage. He'd got some intel of Harry using Hellfire, and figured it was just a waiting game from then on.

Based on Lash' willingness to go to extremes to stop Harry using the table, I wonder if she'd even noticed the flaw but was for some reason forbidden from telling him it was there. She seemed awfully sure he was about to kill himself trying.

I lay Margaret's death at Lea's feet.  A White vampire for Malcolm.  Maybe Madeline.

I kind of doubt a WCV killing someone so quietly that their kid sleeps through it in the same hotel room. Just because he died smiling doesn't mean it was a Raith.

We've seen 2 Accorded challenges, IIRC.  Ortega vs. Harry, and Harry+Carlos vs Vitto+Maddy.  The first one was much more formal, with time between challenge & duel, 2nds to be found, a neutral arbiter (who got to define the methods of the duel!).  The 2nd one had none of that; a brief pause while the challenged armed themselves, then an "anything goes" fight (no neutral 3rd party, etc).

Debatably also a 3rd was Harry vs. Ariana Ortega. Technically not proper in that the Red King ordered a disadvantageous choice of method to punish her usurpation scheme, instead of having her choose as the challenged party, but still more structured than the one in WN in that it was limited to one means instead of everything-goes.

There is a woj that if harry breaks the laws of magic, she wont defend him.

Which is kind of weird, because the Knight is at least partly a hitman. Surely the Queens would expect Knights who don't bring magic of their own to rely on Winter ice magic in the course of carrying out certain kill orders.

Would someone like Slate be subject to execution for doing his Winter job if the Wardens got their hands on him?