COMMENTARY
Hi!" she says, extending her hand with more determination than exuberance. "You must be Harry, you're going to help me find dad right? He's..." she sighs. "He's missing, I know it's going to be a debt, but I can bear it if I have to. Least I can do for messing up with the Grey Heir..." she cuts her self off looking at Molly and Gard on the couch. "The evil ghost, that's what she called herself."
Grey Heir?
Thats a funny way to say Corpsetaker.
And so you tell her: "Ankou isn't working for Mab anymore, hasn't worked for her for more than a hundred years...."
Gain 2 Essence -> Now at 9/12
"Wait... but Bob said that the kind of vows Ankou made to Winter cannot be unsaid or escaped," she interrupts.
"They can't normally, but Arawn was old as he was patient and according to Mab of all the necromancers he faced none were so slippery nor so clever as Kemmler himself. But when it looked like Ankou had finally cornered the bastard back in 1917 Kemlmer made a deal with him, to teach him the secrets of mortality as only men know them, as only mortal men are meant to know them, allowing him to slip the chains of Winter and be something like what he used to be."
-The most interesting discovery here is that Arawn is a fullblown god of death. Which makes Lydia a demigoddess.
I am curious about why the normal safeguards around Halloween dont protect him.
-Arawn was willing to do deals with Kemmler in 1917, AFTER he set off WW1. Worth remembering who and what he is.
He's Lydia's dad, but we arent dealing with some innocent here. That said, its in theme for a lot of top tier supernaturals to have dealings; Mab owed Nicodemus a favor, and the Erl King had dealings with the Reds, and Kincaid used to work for Drakul.
Its just run of the mill morality for old people.
-The year is 2006.
If the Ankou slipped the leash more than a hundred years ago, that would date to before 1907. Which would mean that any deals done with Kemmler in 1917 were not necessary for him to free himself from his agreement with Winter.
-"Secret". Did Mab actually, explicitly say it was a secret, or did she mislead Harry into making assumptions about secrecy?
Because thats very much what Im seeing here. I dont really think its credible to believe that the general supernatural world hasnt figured out that Arawn is a free agent for the last century, especially as apparently all Kemmler's associates knew.
-Kemmler held Bob until his death in 1961.
Bob should know the details of whatever deal Kemmler did with Arawn
Unless it's in the part of himself he fissioned off into Evil Bob.
"I promised to find him than summon Mab as soon as I am able with the news," I explain,mind racing to think of how I could get out of this. "The reason I insisted on the last part is because I couldn't drop a summoning circle in the middle of the street."
1)He hasnt found him yet.
And you dont actually need a formal summoning circle; for someone who has her attention like Dresden, calling her name 3x times will do.
2)Mab is playing Mab games. As per usual.
She only lost access to her Knight a couple years ago. If she had wanted to find Arawn before this, she would have sent the Knight to find him. If she'd wanted to kill or punish him for quitting she could have sent her Knight, or any number of agents, or gone herself; he had dealings with her Court, so he could not use mortality as a shield.
The fact that she didnt means she didnt want to. Looking for him now suggests she has a use for him.
3) Mab is vengeful. Mab is also pragmatic.
She is not spending a valuable asset like Dresden in pursuing a grudge when her handmaiden came under attack by Nemesis and Arctis Tor itself was besieged by attackers wielding Hellfire.
I frankly trust Mab's pragmatism a lot more than I do a god of death we havent met.
