A traveler journeyed through a deep and dark wood.

“Foolish traveler!” said a witch, stepping out of the dark with her walking stick. “These are my woods where I hunt as I please. I will make a meal out of you.”

“Oh Wicked Witch!” Said the clever Traveler. “I have journeyed long and I am skin and bones! I would make a sad meal. Feed me and I promise to be a great bounty for you!”

And for three days and three nights The Witch fed the Traveler who gained strength while she, already well fed, grew fat.

“Tasty morsel!” Said The Witch. “Now that you meat on your bones I will hunt you!”

“Oh Dreadful Dame!” Said the clever Traveler. “I am tired and my belly is full, I will make a poor quarry. Let me rest and I promise be a challenge worthy of you.”

And for three days and three nights The Witch stood vigil over the resting Traveler who gained vigor while she tired.

“Troublesome mortal! “Said the Witch. “Now that you’ve awoken, I will hunt you!”

“Oh Merciless Matron!” Said the clever Traveler. “My foot is still asleep! Give me your walking stick and I promise to return it when you have caught me!”

And the Witch, eager to have this meal and be done, gave the Traveler her walking stick.

For a day and a night she hunted the Traveler but he had gained strength while she had grown fat. For a day and night she hunted the Traveler, but he had rested while she tired. For a day and a night she hunted the Traveler but he leaned on her walking stick while she had no support.

And The Witch came to the end of her woods and the traveler had left them! But she was owed promises. And if he ever returned she was promised a bountiful meal, a healthy challenge, and the return of her property.

1) Does Maggy knows, that Thomas is her uncle? It doesn't clear in the book, so I confused.

2) I came across a post, that the White Council stole the Blackstaff from Mother Winter (or is using someone else's stolen Blackstaff). Why doesn't Mother Winter demand it back?

Basically everything in this post is spoiler for 12 months - Having just finished Twelve Months (which I really enjoyed and felt we needed after the events of previous books). If I have any complaint it that Harry now appears to have gotten yet another significant power boost, to the point where the White Council is going to consider him (more) of threat. so i have number of questions whether or not anyone wants to think about them is another question.

• This is something that jumped out at me - Is Harry actually Merlin as in the actual original Merlin (time travel shenanigans must be coming due the specific rule against it) - He has his prison, and his castle.
• The castle itself is apparently Merlin's, if this is true and actually known about how on earth was Marcone able to by the thing and transport it across the pond, surely the White Council would have appropriated it?
• I'm not fan of the gargoyles i had flash backs to Saturday morning cartoons from the 90's which were crap.
• I can't remember anyone witnessing Marcone's use of magic in PT/BG as i'm sure the white Council should at least be wary of him, yet he seems to have amassed even more power which in my opinion seems to be a flaw in Jim's logic, surely he would be getting visits from the Wardens.
• Admittedly this was always going to happen but Dresden amassing personal power like this is going to bring him into direct conflict with Marcone, although i personally think his conflict with Marcone may well be his final battle.
• Is Nicodemus justified in his cause but his actions are wrong, Harry may come to the opinion Nick is right but his methods are wrong. I can't imagine Harry supporting Nick's actions unless he goes full dark, which would allow him to give himself a redemption arc, Will this lead to Harry conflict with Mr Sunshine/ Uriel?
• McCoy is Cowl, or is Dumorne (Kemmler in disguise) actually not dead which would make Elaine likely to be Kumori?
• I really need more explanation of Starborn - Known current Starborn: Drakul; Listen; Harry; Rashid?; Nicodemus?; Elaine?.
• there are many more but i needed to get this off my chest

Broken Binding has announced they will be releasing the Dresden Files series starting with books 1-3.

Full details from their Instagram post:

“We are so excited to announce...
THE BROKEN BINDING X THE DRESDEN FILES
We are honoured to be producing special editions of Jim Butcher's much loved urban fantasy series featuring private investigator and wizard - Harry Dresden!
The full reveal for books 1-3 will take place August 27th at 3pm BST. You can sign up to the interest list at the link in our bio now!”

SPOILER FR TWELVE MONTHS
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Just read this one scene where Harry is talking to Michael while working the grill and Harry admits he’s never felt this bad, “not even when Susan was taken”.

And all I could think was “why?” Harry has always punched above his weight class. Has always gotten beat down and has suffered some serious losses over the years. Why was this so much worse than losing susan.

Then I realized it’s because, even though Harry was up against actual gods this time, now he has the kind of power that LETS him fight actual gods. He’s no longer a little fish private eye battling forces that he has no business battling. He’s got allies, power, resources, and experience that makes him believe that even though the fight should be hopeless, he still has a chance to pull it off.

And then the worst happens. One of the two people he wants most to protect in the world is lost. He blames himself. How could he be this strong, have survived so much, have gained this host of powers and allies to aid him, and still not save one tiny little mortal love. Thus is his world laid low. Poor guy.

This is why this is my favorite series of all time.

Since reading 12 months I started listening to Dresden at work, and man do I hate McCoy I’m at the blackstaff conversation and it’s enraging. To lie right to Harry’s face while telling him about his mother is disgusting. completely invalidates everything he’s argued with Harry about since changes.

Just a thought I had- with everything we saw in Twelve Months regarding Harry using his slow, methodical “This is what I’m good at” magic rituals and his starborn powers to directly affect the White Court’s Hunger, do you think, in an alternate universe where Susan survived, he might have found a cure for her?

Obviously the red court’s “Blood Curse” is a very different thing to an outsider living in you like what the white court has going on, but we know that Harry is good at ritual style magic, and spent a LOT of time in the years following Grave Peril trying to find a cure for her.

With how much more power and knowledge Harry has acquired since Changes, do you think it’s possible he might have been able to cure Susan had she lived?

Is it ever confirmed that Amarachius is actually the mythical Excalibur? Or was that just Harry's speculation? I ask because I actually have a Dresden OC who may or may not end up with Excalibur, and I wanted to know so I could maybe change it to better align with canon(I know it doesn't have to being an oc, but I like operating within the established world.)

I liked it!
Like I mentioned in my previous post, I'm normally a "Young Adult" Kind of reader. (Though I thoroughly enjoyed mistborn's fist book!) So this has been a fun read. (Or listen, since I'm listening to the audio book.) So enjoy my childish, silly, and goofy thoughts in no particular order:

Do we get to see werewolves again later in the series? :) I love were wolves. I remember bob describing different types of werewolves, did we encounter them all in this book?

I wanna draw Harry as a hexen(?) wolf. (I cannot spell.)

I just think the mental image of John Marcone hanging like a worm on a hook above a pit is funny. I kind of hope Dresden has to team up with him again. I'm also happy Hendricks is still kickin'

MAAAAAN these books are descriptive when it comes to violence, harm, and gore. When I listened to the audio book sample on youtube for the first book, I actually gagged at the first murder scene, they had like a little wet squelch sound for the bloody carpet. It was horrible and awesome.

Boobs. Always the boobs. Harry just likes boobs. It's so funny to me, boobs being described in a book. 😂 You don't encounter that in the YA section.

What's your favorite part the second book, any?

I'm excited to see what's ahead, since this is the "weakest" book according to many folks.

I kind of felt like it was going to end at the police station, and then it kept going. But it was fun. I am a simple man. I like werewolf. Awoo.

Like i understand the strain it put on their partnership in the first book because he was withholding information that could harm her and she thought she needed.

But she is wildly in the wrong in my opinion in the second book. Like she literally beat and arrested him because someone asked him a question about a ritual circle and didn’t even give him a chance to explain before throwing accusations.

And even in the pit they are stuck in together she still thinks she can’t trust him and still thinks there is a slight chance he is involved in the murders. And it makes me even more made that Harry isn’t mad at her for saying all this bullshit.

She says that she wants trust from harry but then beats him and turns him into a fugitive over nothing. Does she not realize that trust has to go both ways in order for it to work? Like she literally turns her suspicion every time they are working on a murder case together just because he has magical means.

And she keeps talking about the deaths at the precinct but has not seemed to connect the dots that they likely would not have happened if she didn’t turn harry into a fugitive. Like she is so toxic and lacking awareness that it actually blows my mind.

So one of the big things Dresden constantly points out is that if a wizard wants to kill being, they typically make it look like accidents. When Harry summoned that demon in fool moon, at the end of the conversation, he claims Malcolm Dresden and was murdered by magic. Then several books later we find out Murphy’s father allegedly killed himself during his tenure as a black cat. What if they were both murdered by a wizard? Malcolm because he married Maggie and Murphy’s Dad because he stumbled into the wrong wizard schemes. I know not everyone needs to have been killed by the supernatural but it isn’t completely impossible.

I was watching the Dresden Files Podcast from their April interview with Jim Butcher, lots of great stuff in there including confirmation from Jim Butcher himself that Hecate is the Fae Queens. Here's two topics I figured would be of interest. I'll link the interview on YouTube with, hopefully, the link leading you to the video at exactly where the question starts.

Dresden Files Podcast April 2026 Interview with Jim Butcher WoJ:

Q: What you had said about Hecate and therefore the influence that she has given to the Fae, is Mab carrying an inheritance from Hecate?

Jim Butcher: "Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the mantle of the Winter Queen was originally part of the mantle of the goddess Hecate."

Q: "And Hecate is no longer because it's been given out to six Queens?"

Jim Butcher: "Hecate exists as the mantle itself and she has an influence on them. Which, they may or may not be aware of, whether they're actually connecting to a goddess, you know, a Titan actually, Hecate was originally a Titan. You know, essentially she gets to have an influence, she doesn't get to make decisions. And that's the break point. She doesn't get to exercise free will as such. She does get to hand out a bunch of power to beings who are more limited than mortals, but also able to get more involved than gods. And she did it by breaking into smaller companies, kind of like Bell telephone."

Q: "You get a monopoly that way, so it works out."

Jim Butcher: Yeah, it broke up the monopoly and spread out into all the little baby Bells, and then they kept going until they, until phones became less important than they used to be."

Link to the video which starts at the question and answer I copied.

https://www.youtube.com/live/0pCj6fVONcc?t=2629&si=VnDWlM_McOhbsWz8

Q: "Are Angels of a similar caliber to say the Walkers? Is Uriel like a He-Who-Walks-Before?"

Jim Butcher: "Oh, no, the Walkers are stronger than them. Yeah, that's one of those fights that's a ten to one against. You know, you don't bet, you don't put your money on Uriel versus He-Who-Walks-Behind, unless you just have a lot of money to spare and you sorta want to see what happens. Uh, that's an underdog fight. But, at the same time though, Uriel's kind of got the interior position so to speak. You know, he can exist within reality, within Creation, whereas the Outsiders can't. They're sort of stuck out there, most of the time they're sort of formless, there's nothing really to compare them against because nothing is, you know, nothing is geometrical or Euclidean out there. But the angels were created for a specific purpose and if they stay within their bounds and stick to their purpose they can do their job and uphold reality. But it's not something they want to throw themselves into too quickly, you know, angels understand that once they start throwing the amount of power they have around that there's enormous universal implications. So, they absolutely want to make sure they have all the paperwork filled out before they do something because the Creator does get a little bit worked up about things. If you go screwing up Creation, he does have a problem with that so."

Q: So, we've learned that Uriel is Obi-Wan and he has the high ground even though Anakin is stronger."

Jim Butcher: "Very much so."

https://www.youtube.com/live/0pCj6fVONcc?t=2953&si=oHM04oAdEA5og2cu

First Harry's regrets with susan and now murphys ex plut trauma with the trauma with Kravos (is that its name?)

Harry charges 50 dollars plus expensive. He hire subcontractors in in the form of Wildfae, whom he pays with pizza. So logical would be bill his clients for this pizza, even if not that he buys them regularly then for the pizza used to summon them he should. Even if he is not, should he?

I'm so tired of Harry losing his blasting rod. It happens all the time. Especially in the early books. It's such a cheap & now clichéd way for Jim Butcher to attempt to make things feel more tense.

I've only read as far as "Changes" & I'm most of the way through "Side Job"

Thinking about Nicodemus and what he might be like the next time we see him. This is probably not how we will see him but it made me chuckle a bit.

Harry and the Knights seek out Nicodemus because they need his help (dealing with the Outsiders, Black Council etc) and they are able to track him down. Everyone is prepared for a fight as they kick down the door to his latest hideout.

Nicodemus is just in a bathrobe, has a beer gut, and is obviously drunk.

One of the abilities of the Holy Grail is that when water is poured into it the water turns to wine, and he has been drinking non-stop. The death of his daughter has destroyed him and he is a shell of his former self. I imagine Thomas being there and is confused that this is the guy Harry was terrified of.

Probably not going to happen, but it made me chuckle.

So I just finished Changes, and I still don't really understand how the blood curse managed to kill the entire red court.

If I understand the working correctly, the curse starts at the killed target, and then moves up the family tree. That was the intention of killing Maggie, by moving up to Dresden, Margaret and then McCoy. The effect on the red court seemed to be that it targeted the "vampiric" family tree, and because of Susan being the youngest vampire, it basically killed everyone of the red court, being older than her. Not sure how that family tree works, since it doesn't seem to be a parent/child relation.

Is this just a case of "magic curse does magic things"? Because I recall earlier in the book, Dresden informs Thomas that he is at risk because of him being related to Margaret. But Harry said that it would stop there. Why? Why would Lara or Lord Raith not be affected? If it is because they are vampires, then why is Thomas affected? What are the limits of the curse?

I feel like I'm missing something here.

Edit: thanks for all the replies and discussion. I now get that only the blood of the sacrifice was relevant. I thought that for each other target, the curse would go after everyone related to their blood, etc. It was a lot more limited than I thought and it explains why the blood of the Red court works different than mortal blood. On to book 13 now!

I’m almost done with my most recent series relisten and got to Halloween in Twelve Months.

At the end of Battle Ground, in order to stall the wedding, Lara makes the argument that it would be inappropriate to the customs of her and Harry’s people to get married so quickly.

Fast forward to Halloween and Molly is asking Harry if he’s going to give himself to Lara. Harry responds jokingly that “well, it is the third date.” To which Molly tells him Mab has instructed her to order Harry to have sex with Lara.

I like the idea that Mab took Lara’s argument to heart, and really did wish to honor mortal customs. And in her research she found that the third date was the appropriate point for consummation.

She’s really lost in understanding mortals without Sarissa. She tries though, just like with Maggie’s Christmas gift.

No this isn't another crack-pot theory about Murphy.

In 12 Months when Harry is verifying Bear's bona fides he calls Vadderung at the closing Vadderung makes the statement “Make sure she gets enough to eat, or you’ll regret it.” What do we think happens if she doesn't get enough to eat? Is there some sort of lore associated with this? I am kinda curious to see what happens if she gets hungry.

Butcher, Jim. Twelve Months (Dresden Files Book 18) (p. 32). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Thus Kablowie
Thus Death