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Chapter One

Winter came early that year; it should have been a tip-off

A snowball soared through the evening air and s a mantra-style chant when it hit her, she wound up with a mouthful of frozen cheer-whichfor her than for s were suddenly in direct contact with the snow

Molly Carpenter sputtered, spitting snow, and a round of hooting laughter went up froathered around her Tall, blond, and athletic, dressed in jeans and a heavy winter coat, she looked natural in the snowy setting, her cheeks and nose turning red with the cold

"Concentration, Molly!" I called I carefully kept any laughter I ot to concentrate! Again!"

The children, her younger brothers and sisters, i fresh ammunition to hurl at her The backyard of the Carpenter house was already thoroughly chewed up fro of winter warfare, and t "fortress" walls faced each other across ten yards of open lawn Molly stood between theave me an impatient look

"This can't possibly be real training," she said, her voice quavering with cold "You're just doing this for your own sick amusement, Harry"

I beamed at her and accepted a freshly made snowball from little Hope, who had apparently appointed herself ravely, and bounced the snowball on my palm a few times "Nonsense," I said "This is wonderful practice Did you think you were going to start off bouncing bullets?"

Molly gave me an exasperated look Then she took a deep breath, bowed her head again, and lifted her left hand, her fingers spread wide She began ies ic up around her in an almost solid barrier, a shield that rose between her and the incipient missile storm

"Ready!" I called out "Aim!"

Every single person there, including ot to the end of aiing froest, little Harry, asn't yet big enough to havearest snowball he could lift

Snowballs pelted my apprentice's shield, and it stopped the first two, the frozeninto puffs of fresh powder The rest of theh Molly's defenses, and she was splattered with several pounds of snow Little Harry ran up to her and threw last, with both hands, and shrieked merry triumph as his bread-loaf-sized snowball splattered all over Molly's stomach

"Fire!" I barked belatedly

Molly fell onto her butt in the snow, sputtered soh Harry and Hope, the youngest of the children, promptly juic devolved into the Carpenter children's longstanding tradition of atte to shovel as much snow as possible down the necks of one another's coats I grinned and stood there watching the beside me

Molly took after Charity Carpenter, who had passed her coloring and build on to her daughter Charity and I haven't always seen eye-to-eye-well, in point of fact, we've hardly ever seen eye-to-eye-but tonight she was s at the children's antics

"Good evening, Mister Dresden," she murmured

"Charity," I replied amiably "This happen a lot?"

"Al the first real snowfall of the year," she said "Generally, though, it's closer to Christmas than Halloween"

I watched the children ro quickly, in a nuh here, and it did ood to see it

I sensed Charity's unusually intense regard and glanced at her, lifting an eyebrow in question