(In McAnally's pub and grill, there aren't any service people. Despite my rumbling stomach, I didn't rise immediately to pick up the food. I knew she didn't have much money, and I had even less. A steak dinner was less than my usual rate, but she was pleasant company, and a sometime apprentice of mine. I would never have been able to afford dinner tonight, except that Kim had offered to buy, if I'd talk to her about something during the meal. He added a couple of bottles of his homemade brown ale, and my mouth started watering. You're better off forgetting this circle and concentrating on something else.' 'But - ' Mac caught my attention from behind the bar by waving a hand at me, and slid a couple of plates of steaming food onto the polished surface of the crooked oak bar. I just want to know what these others are.' 'No,' I told her. You're the only real wizard I've ever even heard of, much less know. No one in local circles recognizes them either.

'I can't find the references for all of these symbols.

'You're Chicago's only practicing professional wizard, and you're the only one who can help me.' She leaned across the table toward me, her eyes intent. She was a tall woman, buxom and lovely in an old-world way, with pale, pretty skin and round cheeks well used to smiling. Kim Delaney frowned at me, and brushed some of her dark, shining hair back from her forehead. 'Absolutely not.' I folded the piece of paper, with its drawings of three concentric rings of spidery symbols, and slid it back over the polished oak-wood table. So I didn't know that it was one night shy of being full when a young woman sat down across from me in McAnally's pub and asked me to tell her all about something that could get her killed. I never used to keep close track of the phases of the moon.

Dresden book 2