I glanced over my shoulder. We were two hundred feet away from the terrace, well out of sight of anyone looking through the glass doors. I tightened my grip on my knife and got ready. Dawson led me over to a long wooden bench inside the gazebo. I sat down, but the dwarf didn’t join me. Instead, he stood before me and rocked back on the heels of his cowboy boots.

“You look like a smart girl, Candy,” the dwarf rumbled.

“So I think it’s pretty safe to say you know who I am and what I do for a living.”

I didn’t know where he was going with this, but I smiled. “Of course I’ve heard of you, Mr. Dawson. You’re one of the biggest coal miners in all of Ashland. A very respectable businessman. Very smart. Very strong.” A little over the top, but flattery never hurt.

He nodded. “I am very strong and very smart. I’m also a Stone elemental, did you know that?”

I shook my head. “No. I’m afraid I don’t pay much attention to magic.”

Dawson nodded again. “Fair enough. As you said, I’m very powerful. But what few people know is that I have another elemental talent. Something small but very handy at times.”

I kept smiling, although by now, my cheeks hurt from the effort. The dwarf needed to step closer so I could come off the bench and stab him, not talk me into a glassy-eyed coma. “And what would that be? A talent for metal perhaps?”

Dawson shook his head. “Oh no, nothing that grand. But I do have the ability to sense others’ magic and know exactly what their power is, just by touching their skin. Almost like a magical fingerprint, if you will.” His face hardened. “And your sticky palms were all over the safe in my office, bitch.”

Uh-oh.

Tobias Dawson had sensed my magic—and worse, he knew I was the one who’d broken into his safe at the mining office.

I immediately came up off the bench, already bringing my hand up, ready to drive my silverstone knife deep into the dwarf ’s chest. But Dawson was quicker. His fist slammed into my face, and the world went black.

29

29

“Are you sure it was her, Tobias?”

A female voice sounded somewhere above my head, although it seemed far away. I couldn’t tell exactly where it was coming from. The pounding in my head drowned out just about everything else, although I felt dew-covered grass underneath my back, and the cool kiss of the night wind on my face. Why was I lying down? I couldn’t remember anything through the ache in my skull.

“I’m positive,” a man muttered. “This is the bitch who broke into my office. She has the stench of that Stone magic all over her. Then there are these.”