Small Favor recap

Mab calls in the second of Harry's three favors: act as Winter's Emissary and protect John Marcone, newly a freeholding lord under the Accords and abducted from a panic room by the returned Knights of the Blackened Denarius. As Summer inexplicably sends its goat-legged gruff assassins after Harry and his own fire magic has somehow gone missing from his mind, Harry hunts Nicodemus through parleys and betrayals - and learns too late that Marcone was bait: the Denarians' real target is the Archive, the little girl Ivy, whom they seize at the Accords negotiation. Harry leads Michael, Sanya, Murphy, Kincaid and Luccio in an assault on the Denarians' island in Lake Michigan; Mab returns his blasting rod and the memory she had veiled, and the stronghold burns. Ivy and Marcone are saved, coins are captured, Nicodemus and Tessa escape - and Michael is shot down in the extraction, crippled out of his knighthood, his sword joining Fidelacchius in Harry's trust. Uriel reveals Harry's new silver fire is soulfire, one Winter favor remains, and Harry finishes the job having beaten the eldest gruff with a donut.

Previously: Harry Dresden broke a conspiracy inside the White Court that was murdering Chicago's minor practitioners, clearing his half-brother Thomas and leaving Lara Raith - the true power behind the White King - in his debt, while confirming that a hidden 'Black Council' arms its pawns with Outsider power through agents like the necromancer Cowl. The shadow of the fallen angel Lasciel, which had lived in Harry's mind since he grabbed her coin to save a child, chose to die shielding him, leaving his head silent. Harry trains Molly Carpenter as his apprentice under a shared death sentence; Murphy, demoted for standing with him, still runs his mortal-world flank. Of the three favors Harry once owed Mab, Queen of Winter, two remain. The holy sword Fidelacchius rests in his keeping. His enemies of record include Nicodemus Archleone and the coin-bound fallen angels of the Blackened Denarius - and crime lord John Marcone has just become the first mortal to sign the Unseelie Accords as a freeholding lord.

A snowball fight at the Carpenter home is interrupted by monsters out of a fairy tale: gruffs, the goat-legged soldiers of Summer, attacking Harry with military precision - and each wave that fails is followed by a bigger brother. Before Harry can work out why the Summer Court wants him dead, Winter answers the question's other half: Mab appears and calls in the second of his three favors. John Marcone has been abducted - taken from a fortified safe room by something that tore through his precautions - and Harry, as Winter's Emissary, is to find and protect him. The scene of the abduction shows Denarian handiwork, and Marcone's people, the valkyrie Gard and the enormous Hendricks, join the hunt for their employer. Harry also can't shake the feeling that something small is missing from his own habits, though he cannot name it.

The enemy shows its face: Nicodemus Archleone is back in Chicago with his wife Tessa, his daughter Deirdre, and more coin-bound Denarians than Harry has ever seen in one place - and because Marcone is a signatory of the Accords, his abduction is a matter between nations. A formal parley is convened, with the Archive - Ivy, the solemn little girl who is the sum of human written knowledge - summoned as neutral arbiter, her bodyguard Kincaid at her side. Michael and Sanya, the Knights of the Cross, take the field as the Denarians' oldest enemies. The negotiation at the Shedd Aquarium is a Denarian trap: the parley erupts into battle, and the enemy's design finally shows itself - the fallen angels' interest reaches past Marcone toward something far more valuable.

The aquarium battle costs the Denarians dearly but wins them their true prize: Ivy. The Archive - one small girl, neutral, unique, and irreplaceable - is taken, to be broken or claimed for the coins, and Kincaid is nearly killed failing to prevent it. Amid the wreckage Harry pieces the scheme together: Marcone was bait from the start, the parley a mechanism to bring the Archive within reach. Molly, meanwhile, has spotted the surgical absence in Harry's behavior - he has not used fire magic in weeks, his blasting rod is nowhere in his memory, and he never noticed: someone has been inside his head. Hunted by Summer's gruffs whenever he surfaces, bargaining with powers on every side, Harry locates the Denarians' stronghold - an island far out in Lake Michigan - and Nicodemus offers terms designed to cost Harry his soul either way. Harry chooses assault instead.

The strike force crosses the lake in the teeth of winter: Harry, Michael, Sanya, Murphy, Kincaid and Warden-Captain Luccio, against a fortified island held by fallen angels. In the battle's crux Mab returns what she had taken - the blasting rod, and the veiled memory of his own fire magic - and Harry understands the manipulation only as he turns it loose: his fire, hidden even from himself until the moment it could be decisive, burns the Denarians' position down around them. Ivy is pulled alive out of her captors' hands; Marcone is recovered; Denarians die and coins are taken. Nicodemus, choked with his own noose for the second time in his long life, is saved by Deirdre and escapes with Tessa. And in the extraction, gunfire finds Michael Carpenter, and the best man Harry knows goes down.

The bill comes due, and the accounting is strange. Michael survives - barely - but his body is ruined for war: his knighthood is over, and he accepts it with a peace that baffles Harry, going home to Charity and the children he now gets to grow old with; Amoracchius joins Fidelacchius in Harry's keeping, two swords waiting for bearers. Murphy, who took up Fidelacchius in the island battle and saw it blaze in her hands, declines the calling on her own terms. The eldest gruff, Summer's final and mightiest assassin, is defeated by the letter of faerie law and a donut - Harry's kind of victory. In a hospital corridor, a janitor who is the archangel Uriel confirms what the perceptive have noticed: the space where Lasciel's shadow died has filled with soulfire, the fire of Heaven, drawn from Harry's own soul. Mab's second favor is paid with one remaining; Marcone resumes his throne owing Harry his life; Ivy, guarded by a healing Kincaid, has gained the one thing the Archive was never permitted - a friend. The coins are locked away, but Tessa's escape and the design behind the whole affair promise the Denarians are not finished with Harry Dresden.

The Denarians' true target was never Marcone: the abduction was the opening move of a scheme to capture the Archive, and at the Accords parley they take Ivy after a devastating battle. Harry answers with an assault on the Denarians' island stronghold in Lake Michigan, alongside Michael, Sanya, Murphy, Kincaid and Luccio. Mab returns what she had secretly taken - Harry's blasting rod, veiled from his own memory along with his fire magic - and Harry burns the enemy's position down around them. Ivy and Marcone are recovered alive; a number of Denarians are killed and several of their coins captured; Nicodemus, half-strangled with his own noose, survives through his daughter Deirdre and escapes; Tessa escapes as well. In the battle Murphy takes up the holy sword Fidelacchius, which blazes for her, though she declines its calling. The victory's price is Michael: gunned down during the extraction, he survives only barely and is left too badly maimed to fight again - his sword, Amoracchius, passes into Harry's keeping alongside Fidelacchius, and Michael retires to his family with a serenity Harry cannot fathom. In a hospital corridor the archangel Uriel, wearing a janitor's clothes, confirms what has changed in Harry: the death of Lasciel's shadow left space that has filled with soulfire, Heaven's counterpart to hellfire, fueled by Harry's own soul. Mab's second favor is paid, one remains, Marcone stands as an Accords lord with his debts to Harry unresolved, and Ivy - saved by a wizard who refused to write her off as an office - has a friend for the first time.