Finn stood about ten feet away from the dwarf. He must have been talking to Red when the gunman entered the store, because he’d put himself in between her and the dwarf. Red had the same stunned, horrified expression on her face that Blondie did.

Finn had his hands up, although his eyes were narrowed, assessing the dwarf and the danger he presented, just like I was.

The first thing I did was look past the gunman and through the boutique windows, just in case he had a partner waiting outside, but I didn’t see anyone loitering on the sidewalk or sitting in a getaway car by the curb. A solo job, then.

The second thing I did was study the dwarf to see if it looked like he was searching the store for someone else—me, Gin Blanco, the assassin known as the Spider.

By killing Mab, I’d inadvertently made myself a popular target in the underworld, and more than one of the crime bosses had put a bounty on my head, hoping to establish themselves as Ashland’s new head honcho by taking me out. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility to think that the dwarf had followed Finn and me to the boutique on someone’s orders.

But the only thing the dwarf was interested in was the jewelry. His eyes glinted, and his mouth curved up into a satisfied smile as he glanced down at all the expensive baubles. So this was nothing more than a simple robbery, then. Plenty of those in Ashland, even up here in the rarefied air of Northtown. Really, if the Posh owners were going to keep all those diamonds around, then they should have at least hired a giant or two to guard them.

“Move!” the dwarf barked, pointing his gun at Blondie. “Over there with the others. Now!”

Blondie, who’d been behind the counter, hurried around it and stopped next to Red, putting the other woman and Finn between her and the robber. Well, at least she had a good sense of self-preservation. Red knew it too; she gave her coworker a hostile glance over her shoulder.

I turned my attention back to the robber, wondering if he might have any magic to go along with his inherent dwarven strength and the hand cannon he was sporting. But the dwarf’s eyes didn’t glow, and I didn’t sense anything emanating from him. No hot, invisible waves of Fire power, no cold, frosty blasts of Ice magic, and nothing else to indicate that he was an elemental. Good. That would make this easier.

“Give me the key!” the dwarf snapped at Blondie as he moved behind the counter. “Now!”