The old man nodded and rocked back and forth in his recliner. “I figured as much.”
“What happened down there, Gin?” Jo-Jo asked. “In the mine.”
I sat on the sofa and curled my feet up underneath my body. “Dawson knocked me out at Mab Monroe’s party. He recognized my magic somehow. When I woke up, I was in the mine with the dwarf and two of his giants. We were in this cavern, this beautiful cavern. That’s where the diamonds were, hundreds of them set in the stone walls like tiny lamps. Dawson hit me. He wanted to know if Warren had hired me to kill him. All the usual stuff.”
“What did you say?” Warren asked.
I smiled. “I told him I was working for Mab Monroe. That she wanted him dead.”
Something sparked in Jo-Jo’s eyes, but she masked the emotion before I could figure out what it was.
“Then what happened?” Jo-Jo asked.
I shrugged. “I figured I wasn’t getting out of there alive and that I might as well take Dawson and his goons with me. So I used my Stone and Ice magic to collapse the ceiling. That’s why he needed your land, Warren. The cavern was right under the creek, and the ceiling was too fragile for him to go ahead and mine the diamonds without you knowing about it.”
Warren nodded.
“After the dust settled, I was still alive, and they weren’t. So I looked for a way out of the cavern, and I found one. End of story.”
I didn’t tell Jo-Jo about my hands, about the fact I seemed to have more Ice magic now than ever before.
That I could feel the cool power rippling through my veins. There would be time enough to do that later. After I’d figured out for myself whether it was just a fluke.
I jerked my head at the television. “What are they saying?”
Warren hit the remote, and the sound came on.
“They’re saying it was an earthquake. That Dawson and his men were doing a late-night inspection and got trapped inside. They’re still digging for them, although everybody knows he’s probably dead by now.”
I thought of Dawson’s pale hand sticking out the mound of earth and stone — and the way I’d cut the dwarf ’s wrist just to make sure. “Yeah, Dawson’s dead and buried.”
“I’m just glad you didn’t end up the same way,” Warren said.
I stared at the wreckage on the television. The sound of the earth rumbling and the stone shrieking rang in my ears. “Me too.”
Jo-Jo went to call Finn and Sophia and tell them that I was finally awake, leaving me alone in the den with Warren.
The old coot heaved himself out of his recliner, bones cracking, and disappeared. I watched the news coverage of the mine disaster.
Warren came back a minute later carrying a small picture frame. He stared at it a moment, then shoved it into my hands. “Here. I know I can’t pay you for what you did with Dawson and all that you suffered. But I’d like to give you something, and I thought you might want this.”
I stared at the picture. A fine layer of dust covered the frame, which I wiped away with the edge of my T-shirt.
The picture might have been in color at one time, but it had long ago faded to a dull yellow. Two young men, little more than teenagers, looked up at me. The shorter man was obviously Warren T. Fox. He’d stared into the camera with a serious expression, as though he didn’t like having his picture taken. The other man was Fletcher, whose wide grin more than made up for Warren’s lack of one. They both wore work shirts and overalls. Fishing rods and tackle boxes lay at their feet, along with a string of fish. Trees ringed the area behind them.
“Is this you and Fletcher?” I asked.
Warren settled into his recliner and started rocking again. “It is. Taken a couple of months before he started up the Pork Pit. Last photo we ever took together.”
“Don’t you want to keep it then?”
Warren shrugged. “I don’t need a photo to remind me of Fletcher. Never have.”
He stared at the television, but I still spotted the sheen of moisture in his dark eyes. In that moment, I knew Warren missed Fletcher Lane as much as I did, even if he’d never admit it. And I knew the photo had to be one of his prized possessions. Because it was a symbol of their friendship, of their childhood growing up together, and all the good times and hopes and dreams they’d shared.
I had photos of Fletcher, but none like this. None that showed him being so easy and carefree. None that showed him as he really was, without the calm mask he’d presented to so many people, including me, over the years.
For the first time, I felt like I was seeing the real Fletcher Lane.
And now Warren was giving the photo to me. His gesture touched me in a way nothing had done in a long time. I might have been an assassin for seventeen years, might have killed a lot of people, but helping Warren and Violet Fox was definitely one of the best things I’d ever done.
“All right,” I said. “There’s an empty spot on the wall at the Pork Pit. I think this will go nicely there.”
Warren nodded. I walked over, leaned down, and kissed his wrinkled cheek. He smelled of Old Spice and peppermint.
“Thank you for this.”
He didn’t look at me, but a blush crept up the side of his neck. “It’s nothing.”
“No,” I said in a quiet voice, staring at Fletcher’s smiling face. “It’s everything to me.”
——
Embarrassed, Warren made some excuse about checking on the store, leaving me alone in the den. I sat there staring at the photo of him and Fletcher until Jo-Jo Deveraux came back in.
“What’s that?” she asked.
I showed her the picture.
“Nice of him to give it to you,” the dwarf replied, sitting on the sofa.
“Yes, it was.”
We didn’t speak for a few moments. Finally, Jo-Jo broke the silence.
“You want to talk about it?” she asked in a soft voice.
“About what happened in the mountain? About your magic? About how you’re stronger now?”
My head snapped. “How the hell do you know that?”
Her pale eyes were old and knowing in her made-up face. “I could feel it when I was healing you. Your Ice magic, it’s stronger now, isn’t it?”
I sighed and told her what had happened in the cavern.
About how I’d felt something give inside me and the fact the spider rune scars on my hands glowed brighter than a flashlight. I even gave her a demonstration.
Jo-Jo leaned over and studied my silvery palms. Then she nodded and sat back on the sofa.
“So what happened to me? Is it temporary? Permanent? Did I break my magic or something?”
Jo-Jo chuckled. “Nothing like that, Gin. But yes, I do believe it’s permanent.” She gave me a steady look. “Have you wondered why your Stone magic is so much stronger than your Ice power?”
I shrugged. “Not really. It’s rare enough to be able to control two elements. I always assumed my Ice magic was just weaker.”
Jo-Jo shook her head. “No, darling, your Ice magic isn’t weaker. It’s just been contained — until now.”
I frowned. “How?”
She jerked her head at my palms. “By that silverstone in your hands. You know as well as I do that silverstone is a magical metal, that it can hold and absorb elemental magic.”
“So what?”
“So silverstone can also block magic. In your case, the metal in your hands kept you from fully realizing your Ice potential.”
“I don’t understand.”
Jo-Jo propped her heels up on the coffee table. Her feet were bare, her toes painted pink, just like always. “You know there’s a lot of duality in elemental magic. A lot of likes and dislikes between all four of the elements. Now, Stone is more of an internal magic. You don’t have to do anything to hear the vibrations of the rocks around you. Air is the same way. But Fire and Ice are different. Most elementals release those two types of magic through their hands. It’s just easier and quicker to form a fireball in your hand than it is to shoot it out of your eyes or your ass.”