The low, deep baritone of a giant. But the most curious thing was the voice echoed like an organ, bouncing off the rock walls that surrounded us. I listened again, more closely this time, not just to the pea-size pebbles around me but also to the underlying stone beneath my body. And I realized it surrounded me. The ground was soft, but the ceiling and especially the walls were harder, rockier, and all made of stone. Given what I knew of Tobias Dawson, there was only one place I could be—inside the dwarf ’s coal mine. Dawson Number Three. A place where no one would hear me scream—or ever find my broken body.

Footsteps scuffed on the ground behind me, and I started rocking back and forth and moaning. No need to let the bastards know I had my wits about me just yet. I also opened my eyes and started blinking away the white spots that swam in and out of my vision like lazy catfish.

Slowly, I pushed myself up to my hands and knees, then leaned back on my heels. My head and face pounded, but I blocked out the pain, even as I huddled there with my head in my hands.

A pair of boots appeared before me. Cowboy boots.

Black snakeskin with red flames and pointed, silverstone tips. I looked up to find Tobias Dawson looming over me.

As much as a five-foot-tall dwarf could loom.

“About time you woke up, bitch,” he said and hit me again.

———

I didn’t have time to reach for my Stone magic to harden my skin into a rocky shell. Besides, that was a card I didn’t want to play just yet. Tobias Dawson might have sensed my magic, might have been able to finger me as the one who broke into his safe, but he probably didn’t realize how strong I was. Otherwise, he would have done the smart thing and killed me while I’d been unconscious in Mab Monroe’s garden.

But all that knowledge, all that planning, didn’t help me with the fist whistling toward my body at warp speed.

I managed to lean back and turn my body enough so that his fist hit my left shoulder instead of slamming into my face. The hard blow bowled me over onto my side, and I felt it reverberate through my whole body. An electric shockwave of pain. A low groan escaped from between my clamped lips, but I forced myself to tense up, to try to defend myself against another sharp blow. But the dwarf didn’t come after me again. Instead, he stepped back and regarded me with his cold blue eyes. Since Tobias Dawson wasn’t immediately going to beat me to death, my gaze flicked around the area.

I’d been right—I was deep in Dawson’s coal mine.