Summer Knight

The fourth installment in the Dresden Files urban fantasy series finds Harry Dresden, Chicago's only professional wizard, at his lowest point. For months he has been living as a recluse, neglecting his health and his business while obsessively researching a cure for his girlfriend, Susan Rodriguez. Susan was partially turned by the Red Court of vampires during a confrontation Harry blames himself for, and she left Chicago rather than risk completing the transformation.

When Harry investigates a rain of toads in a Chicago park, a sign of serious magical instability, masked gunmen and a shapeshifting ghoul ambush him. Billy, a young werewolf who leads a college-aged pack called the Alphas, saves Harry's life and forces him to keep a client meeting at his office.

The client turns out to be Mab, Queen of Air and Darkness, monarch of the Winter Court of the Sidhe, the noble faeries. Harry exposes her by rolling an iron nail across the desk; iron is toxic to faeries, and she recoils, dropping her disguise. Mab reveals she has purchased the magical debt Harry owes his faerie godmother, the Leanansidhe, giving Mab power over him. She offers freedom: Complete three tasks of her choosing, and the debt is canceled. Her first request is to investigate the death of Ronald Reuel, an elderly artist found dead at the bottom of a staircase. The police ruled it an accident, but Mab insists he was murdered.

Harry attends a meeting of the White Council, the governing body of the world's wizards. The Council is at war with the Red Court, a conflict Harry inadvertently triggered. His former mentor, Ebenezar McCoy, rallies support from members of the Senior Council, the White Council's ruling inner circle, but a key ally's death costs them a crucial vote. At the full meeting, opponents propose stripping Harry of his wizard status so he can be handed to the vampires as a peace offering. The vote on the seven-member Senior Council splits three to three. The Gatekeeper, who holds the deciding vote, proposes a trial: Harry must fulfill Mab's request and secure Winter's cooperation for safe passage through the Nevernever, the spirit realm. Harry accepts, knowing refusal means certain death.

Harry consults Bob, a spirit of intellect housed in a skull who serves as his research assistant. Bob identifies Reuel as the Summer Knight, a mortal champion entrusted with significant power by the Summer Court. When a Knight dies, that power should return to the nearest Summer Queen, but it has not. Someone intercepted the mantle and trapped it, weakening Summer and destabilizing the balance between the Courts. Bob warns that a sustained imbalance could trigger a catastrophic war between Summer and Winter.

Harry enters Reuel's apartment building disguised as a delivery man and finds a powerful faerie ogre called Grum, apparently sent to remove incriminating evidence, already looting the apartment. He manages to palm a photograph showing Reuel with four young changelings, people of mixed human and faerie blood. At Reuel's funeral, three of them, Meryl, Fix, and Ace, flee from Harry in terror. Their fourth companion, Lily, is missing.

A greater shock awaits Harry at home: Elaine, his childhood love and fellow apprentice, is alive. He believed her dead for years, killed in the fire that consumed their abusive mentor, Justin DuMorne. Elaine survived and found sanctuary with the Summer Court. She is now Summer's Emissary, investigating the same murder from the opposite side.

Harry descends into Undertown, the dangerous tunnel network beneath Chicago, to confront Maeve, the Winter Lady, in her court. Maeve attempts to seduce Harry with glamour, a form of faerie enchantment, but he resists and concludes she lacks the discipline for a methodical murder. He also observes Lloyd Slate, the Winter Knight, deliver a blood-crusted knife to Maeve. Harry then visits Aurora, the Summer Lady, who warns that Summer is preparing for war and tries to persuade Harry to abandon his investigation with a wave of emotional healing so powerful it nearly breaks his resolve.

A coordinated attack at a Wal-Mart nearly kills Harry and Karrin Murphy, the head of Chicago PD's Special Investigations unit. The ambush involves the ghoul from Harry's earlier encounter, now identified as a contract killer called the Tigress, along with Grum, a hidden rifleman, and a chlorofiend, a massive animated plant construct. Murphy fights through her fear to help Harry destroy the chlorofiend and drive off the other assailants.

Harry's faerie godmother transports him to a cloud-realm battleground called Chicago-Over-Chicago, where the Stone Table stands. Blood spilled on the Table becomes power for whichever Court holds it. Using his Sight, a wizard's ability to perceive magical truth, Harry glimpses the staggering scale of the Queens' power.

Harry and Elaine travel to the Mothers, the eldest Queens of both Courts, in a remote cottage in Faerie. The Mothers guide Harry through the logic of the stolen mantle: Since no Queen holds it, someone redirected it into a different vessel and transformed that vessel to render the power inert. Harry realizes the killer is Aurora. She murdered her own Knight, poured his mantle into Lily, and turned Lily to stone, trapping the power in limbo and creating the imbalance that pushes the Courts toward war. Mother Winter gives Harry the Unraveling, a knitted cloth that can undo any enchantment.

Leaving the cottage, Harry is ambushed. Grum is revealed to be Talos, Aurora's Lord Marshal, in disguise, and Elaine stands with the enemy. Aurora confirms her plan to take Lily to the Stone Table after midnight and kill her there, draining the Knight's power permanently into Winter. She believes shattering the balance will end the cycle of suffering the Courts inflict on mortals. Elaine binds Harry and Aurora buries him in rising mud, but Elaine leaves a coded message: The binding is the same spell they created together as teenagers. Harry knows its structural weakness, breaks free, and escapes.

The Gatekeeper provides a chip of the Stone Table that points toward the battlefield. Harry assembles the Alphas, Fix, and Meryl and leads them up a staircase of moonlight into the cloud-realm. In a desperate fight along the river, Slate stabs Meryl. Harry blasts Slate with lightning, and Fix beats the Winter Knight unconscious. At the Stone Table, the dying Meryl embraces her troll heritage, transforming into a massive troll to tear through Aurora's wall of poisoned thorns. Elaine arrives and frees Harry, confirming her earlier betrayal was calculated to help him survive.

Harry releases Toot-toot, a pixie commander he had previously recruited with pizza bribes, and a swarm of tiny faeries armed with steel box knives from a doctor's bag. The cold steel shears through Aurora's faerie defenses, and Harry tackles her off the Table to prevent her blood from empowering Winter. Aurora dies in his arms, whispering that she only wanted the hurting to stop.

Mab arrives and confirms she will honor her bargain, granting the Council safe passage through Winter's realm. She offers Harry the position of Winter Knight, which he refuses. When Aurora dies, her Lady's power flows into Lily, who already carries the Summer Knight's mantle. For the first time, a mortal changeling holds a Queen's power. Lily appoints Fix as her new Knight. Elaine visits Harry before leaving Chicago, free of her debt to the dead Aurora, and tells him to stop punishing himself and start living again. Harry joins Billy and the Alphas for a gaming night, choosing companionship over isolation for the first time in months.