Changes: The Dresden Files, Book 12 characters

Appears from the start

Chicago's professional wizard, a Warden of the White Council in its long war with the Red Court of vampires. The book opens with a phone call that upends his life: Susan Rodriguez, the lover who left him years ago after the vampires half-turned her, tells him the Red Court has taken their daughter - a child Harry never knew existed. Everything he does from that moment is measured against one goal: getting his little girl back, whatever it costs him.

Appears from the start

Harry and Susan's eight-year-old daughter, kept secret from her father and hidden away for her own safety. The Red Court has found and taken her, and the question of why a duchess of the vampire nation wants one small girl - and what she means to do with her - drives the entire book. Maggie herself remains offstage for most of it, a child at the center of forces she cannot understand.

Appears from the start

Harry's former lover, a onetime investigative reporter who was half-turned by the Red Court years ago: she has a vampire's strength, speed, and thirst, but has never killed, which is all that keeps her human. She left Harry to fight the Red Court with the Fellowship of St. Giles, a network of the half-turned. Now she returns to tell Harry the truth she hid from him - their daughter Maggie - and to fight beside him to recover her, with all the old feelings and new resentments that entails.

Appears from the start

Susan's partner in the Fellowship of St. Giles, a half-turned agent who has fought the Red Court for the better part of a century. Controlled, colorless, and relentlessly practical, Martin treats the mission as everything and sentiment as a liability, which puts him constantly at odds with Harry. He knows more about the Red Court's inner workings than he shares.

First appears in chapter 2

Harry's enormous grey Temple Dog, intelligent enough to understand conversation and formidable enough to fight things no ordinary animal could face. Mouse guards the people Harry loves, and in a book about protecting a child, his steadiness matters more than ever.

First appears in chapter 5

A duchess of the Red Court, elegant, ancient, and untouchable behind diplomatic protections - the vampire nation is negotiating peace with the White Council, and Arianna arrives wrapped in the immunities of an envoy. She is the one who took Maggie. Her stated grievances with Harry are personal: he killed her husband, Duke Ortega, in a duel years ago. What she actually intends is colder and far larger than revenge on one wizard.

First appears in chapter 4

A Chicago police officer, formerly head of Special Investigations, and one of Harry's closest allies. Murphy has fought vampires, necromancers, and worse beside him with nothing but courage, training, and firearms. As Harry's hunt for his daughter pulls him away from every institution that might have helped him, Murphy is one of the few people who never hesitates - even knowing this fight is beyond anything the two of them have faced.

First appears in chapter 4

Harry's apprentice, a young wizard whose talents run to veils, illusions, and the magic of the mind. Molly has grown from a frightened teenager into a capable practitioner, fiercely loyal to Harry. She insists on standing with him in a fight that everyone knows may kill them, and her sensitivity - the same gift that makes her dangerous - leaves her exposed to horrors the others can shrug off.

First appears in chapter 12

A gruff old wizard of the Senior Council, Harry's onetime teacher and mentor, who took Harry in as a troubled teenager and taught him most of what he knows about being a decent man as well as a wizard. Blunt, plainspoken, and far more dangerous than his farmer's manner suggests, McCoy carries secrets about his own role in the Council - and about Harry - that surface under the pressure of this war.

Also known as Lea

First appears in chapter 20

The Leanansidhe, a powerful sidhe noblewoman of the Winter Court and Harry's faerie godmother - a bargain made by his mother long ago. Beautiful, alien, and cheerfully amoral, Lea has spent years alternately menacing and protecting her godson. Recently released from long imprisonment in ice at Arctis Tor, she takes a keen, unsettling interest in Harry's war, and her help always comes on faerie terms.

First appears in chapter 32

The Queen of Air and Darkness, ruler of the Winter Court of faerie - beautiful, terrifying, and patient as winter itself. Mab has wanted Harry as her Winter Knight, her mortal champion, for years, and he has always refused, knowing what the mantle does to the men who bear it. As Harry runs out of allies, options, and time to save his daughter, Mab's standing offer waits for him like an open trap.

First appears in chapter 26

Harry's half-brother, a vampire of the White Court who feeds on life energy through lust. Their kinship is a closely held secret. Estranged from Harry since a skinwalker's torments stripped away his restraint the year before, Thomas has grown colder and more openly a predator - but when Harry calls in every ally he has to save Maggie, Thomas answers.

First appears in chapter 38

One of the two remaining Knights of the Cross, a towering Russian with an easy grin who carries the sword Esperacchius. A onetime Denarian host who turned his life around, Sanya treats impossible odds as a professional routine. He arrives, as the Knights tend to, exactly where despair is thickest.