I waited in the hallway, but the two of them didn’t say anything else. So I padded into the den where they were sitting. Both of them looked at me. Sophia and Finn were nowhere to be found, and Violet was probably still at Eva’s. The television flickered in front of Warren and Jo-Jo, showing scenes of the collapsed mine, although the sound was muted.

“Feeling better?” Jo-Jo asked.

I shrugged. “Some. I’m still tired, though.”

“You will be,” the dwarf replied. “It took me quite a long while to patch you up this time. Whatever you did in that mine shaft, it took its toll on you.”

I didn’t respond. Instead, I looked at Warren. “I’m sure you’ve guessed by now, but Tobias Dawson is dead. So are two of his giants. He won’t be bothering you anymore.”

The old man nodded and rocked back and forth in his recliner. “I figured as much.”

“What happened down there, Gin?” Jo-Jo asked. “In the mine.”

I sat on the sofa and curled my feet up underneath my body. “Dawson knocked me out at Mab Monroe’s party. He recognized my magic somehow. When I woke up, I was in the mine with the dwarf and two of his giants. We were in this cavern, this beautiful cavern. That’s where the diamonds were, hundreds of them set in the stone walls like tiny lamps. Dawson hit me. He wanted to know if Warren had hired me to kill him. All the usual stuff.”

“What did you say?” Warren asked.

I smiled. “I told him I was working for Mab Monroe. That she wanted him dead.”

Something sparked in Jo-Jo’s eyes, but she masked the emotion before I could figure out what it was.

“Then what happened?” Jo-Jo asked.

I shrugged. “I figured I wasn’t getting out of there alive and that I might as well take Dawson and his goons with me. So I used my Stone and Ice magic to collapse the ceiling. That’s why he needed your land, Warren. The cavern was right under the creek, and the ceiling was too fragile for him to go ahead and mine the diamonds without you knowing about it.”

Warren nodded.

“After the dust settled, I was still alive, and they weren’t. So I looked for a way out of the cavern, and I found one. End of story.”

I didn’t tell Jo-Jo about my hands, about the fact I seemed to have more Ice magic now than ever before.

That I could feel the cool power rippling through my veins. There would be time enough to do that later. After I’d figured out for myself whether it was just a fluke.

I jerked my head at the television. “What are they saying?”

Warren hit the remote, and the sound came on.