Clementine waved a hand at him, dismissing his concerns. “Oh, I know all about your power, Mr. Grayson, especially the sculptures and weapons you make in your spare time. In fact, I bought one of your knives at a charity auction just last month. Exquisite craftsmanship.”

My gaze dropped from the screen to the knife I’d set down on the table. The blood from the giant I’d killed in the hallway outside outlined the spider rune stamped into the hilt. Owen had made this knife and four others for me as Christmas presents, and they were indeed exquisite weapons, just as Clementine had said about her own blade. Light, strong, durable, razor-sharp. I’d used the knives more than once on my enemies, and they’d never failed me.

Owen shook his head. “You’ve got it all wrong. Yes, I have an elemental talent for metal. Yes, I can craft all sorts of things out of it. But that vault door? Six inches of reinforced silverstone? That is well beyond my magic.”

“I thought you might say that, and you just might be right. But believe me when I tell you that I’ve planned ahead. I don’t expect you to do it all by yourself.”

Clementine snapped her fingers. One of the giants stepped forward, a duffel bag swinging from his hand. He put the bag on the floor, unzipped it, and reached inside it. A moment later, he came out with a welder’s torch. Another giant with another bag stepped forward and pulled out a similar torch.

The third giant stepped forward, but instead of reaching into yet another bag, like I expected, he simply held out his hand. A moment later, elemental Fire crackled to life in his palm, the flames flowing from one of his fingers to the next and back again.

Owen eyed the torches and the Fire, but he didn’t say anything.

“Now, taken as one piece, the vault door is pretty much impregnable, just like you said,” Clementine said. “There’s no way to blast through it. But I don’t need to get through the door, just around it. So you and my boys are going to use the torches to superheat the silverstone locking mechanism, along with the help of Oscar’s elemental Fire. When it gets hot enough, you’ll use your magic to gut the lock so that it’s useless. Once that’s done, you’ll go to work on the hinges, popping those off, and then I’ll just move that big slab of a door right out of the way.”