Battle Ground (The Dresden Files, #17)

by Jim Butcher

“Yeah, well,” I panted, gasping sweet, sweet air. “That’s because you suck. And you’re an amateur. Who sucks.” “I didn’t see you doing anything about it.” “Yeah, because I was holding the freaking Titan!” I shot back. “I was doing the grown-up stuff.” “You just almost killed us both as an unintended side effect of that binding,” Marcone snapped. “And you call me an amateur.” “I saved your life from a Titan,” I panted, exhausted. And I think I had picked up a couple of cracked ribs, despite the last-second shield of concrete that had risen to stop most of the force of the wave. “You almost drowned us. Fake wizard.” “I just broke down the molecular structure of concrete and then chemically re-formed it inside a mold of pure will, saving both of our lives from that wave in the process.” “Fake,” I said. “Sad.” Marcone let out a low, weary chuckle. My stomach twitched a lot while breaths went in and out of my exhausted body. We did not laugh together. And he was no less an asshole. But we won.