Violet nodded. “All right. My grandfather, Warren Fox, owns a store up on Ridgeline Hollow Road called Country Daze. It’s an old-timey country store with glass soda pop bottles, barrels full of penny candy, locally made goods, that kind of thing. It’s also right next to one of the big coal mines—Dawson Number Three. It started out as an underground mine with a big seam of coal. But the coal ran out a few years ago, so the underground part has been idle since then. Now it’s just a strip mine. The owner of the mine, Tobias Dawson, has been after my grandfather to sell the store, land, and mineral rights to him for years so he can expand the mine and search for more coal. But the store and the land have been in our family for generations. Grandfather has always refused, saying he’d rather die than see any more of the mountain destroyed.”

Tobias Dawson. I knew that name. Dawson was one of the biggest mine operators in Ashland, a dwarf who’d pulled coal out of the mountains for years himself as a miner before making enough money to start up his own company. He’d had nothing but success ever since. A true miner through and through who was always on the lookout for the next big seam of coal in the mountains. If Tobias Dawson wanted something, he usually got it—no matter who got dead in the process. Dawson was also deep in bed with Mab Monroe. I remembered seeing his name in the file Fletcher had compiled on the Fire elemental queen.

Hearing Dawson’s name also made me recall where I’d seen the symbol that had been tattooed on the bicep of Violet Fox’s attacker. Unless I was mistaken, a lit stick of dynamite was Tobias Dawson’s rune for his mining company.

Violet continued with her story. “In the past, Dawson was content just to wait. He’s a dwarf, after all, just a bit over two hundred. He’s bound to outlive Grandfather and me too. But he’s not taking no for an answer anymore. He’s sent some of his men out to harass us. They’ve broken the windows in the store, threatened customers, interfered with our deliveries. You name it, they’ve done all that and more the last two months, trying to drive us out of business. Grandfather’s been able to handle Dawson’s men so far, but I worry about him. Dawson’s more or less told Grandfather that he’ll kill us both if Grandfather doesn’t sell out to him. Grandfather said no, of course.”