I shrugged. No use denying it now. If Tobias Dawson’s elemental talent for sensing and identifying others’ magic was as good as he claimed, no lie of mine would convince him otherwise. Besides, I was already on the hook here. If I played my cards right, maybe things would stop and end with me. I didn’t want Dawson to start thinking about who else might have been involved with me—and I didn’t want him going after Finn, the Deveraux sisters, the Foxes, or even Donovan Caine.

“Yeah, I broke into your office.”

“Why?” the dwarf snapped. “What were you looking for? Who are you working for? Did Warren Fox hire you to kill me?”

I stared at the dwarf and kept my eyes cold, my face expressionless. I might be on the express bus to dead, but I wasn’t going to snitch on the Foxes and take them with me. “I don’t know any Warren Fox.”

“Bullshit,” Tobias snarled. “I saw you at his store the other day.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You mean that shack by the side of the crossroads? Yeah, I was there. So what?”

“Why?” Dawson demanded.

“I had to pee,” I quipped. “And I didn’t feel like getting a briar in my ass by going in the woods.”

The dwarf stared at me, considering my words. “I don’t believe you.”

“Doesn’t much matter to me whether you believe me or not.”

Tobias spit a stream of tobacco juice out of his mouth.

It spattered against my bare, scraped leg. The dwarf was going to pay for that. I might die down here, but before I went, I was going to get at least one good blow in. Just for that.

“Who are you working for? What do you want?” Dawson asked again. “I have ways of making you talk, you know.”

My jaw twitched with pain, which kept me from rolling my eyes. Yeah, I’d figured out the dwarf could hurt me the first time he’d slammed his fist into my face. The memory was still fresh in my mind, even if it had apparently slipped his.

“I’m sure you do. As for what I want, well, it’s more about what my employer wants. Maybe we can work out some sort of deal.”

The dwarf stopped his circle to stand in front of me.

His pale blue eyes narrowed. “I’m listening.”

“You let me go, and I tell you who wants you dead. How does that sound?”

The dwarf nodded. “All right. You have a deal.”