Jennifer Estep - Web of Lies

I threw back the blanket on top of me, got to my feet, and stumbled over to the dresser in the corner. I stared at my reflection in the mirror. I looked the same as always, dark chocolate brown hair, gray eyes, light skin, a few freckles on my nose and cheeks. I wiggled my jaw. Perfect as always, and all my loose tooth felt attached once more. However terrible I’d looked when I’d come out of the mountain, Jo-Jo Deveraux had healed me — all of me.

I’d have to get Finn to give the dwarf a bonus for going above and beyond this time.

I opened the door to the bedroom and looked around.

I was upstairs in the Foxes’ house, from the look of all the pictures of Warren, Violet, and the rest of their family on the walls. I headed right and padded down a set of narrow stairs. I’d just stepped onto the landing when something shimmering outside through the window caught my eye.

The small creek that ran by the Foxes’s house and country store had turned into a large pond. It stretched out perhaps a quarter of a mile, settled into a new dip in the ground.

Probably right over the spot where the cavern with the diamonds had been. The pond was another sign of how my magic had altered the landscape, of how I’d done this thing without even thinking about the consequences.

“Fuck,” I whispered.

I shook my head and went down the stairs. Soft voices drifted out from the den, so that’s where I headed.

“… can’t believe the amount of power she used, how much magic she was able to tap into.”

I stopped where I was in the hallway. Jo-Jo was talking — about me.

“I wouldn’t have believed it myself if I hadn’t felt it,” Warren T. Fox replied in his high, reedy voice. “Felt like the whole mountain was going to tear itself in two. Worse than an earthquake.”

“Gin’s only just now coming into the full extent of her power,” Jo-Jo replied. “She’s only going to get stronger.”

“I’d hate to get on her bad side,” Warren muttered.

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.

“They’re saying it was an earthquake. That Dawson and his men were doing a late-night inspection and got trapped inside. They’re still digging for them, although everybody knows he’s probably dead by now.”

I thought of Dawson’s pale hand sticking out the mound of earth and stone — and the way I’d cut the dwarf ’s wrist just to make sure. “Yeah, Dawson’s dead and buried.”

“I’m just glad you didn’t end up the same way,” Warren said.

I stared at the wreckage on the television. The sound of the earth rumbling and the stone shrieking rang in my ears. “Me too.”

Jo-Jo went to call Finn and Sophia and tell them that I was finally awake, leaving me alone in the den with Warren.

The old coot heaved himself out of his recliner, bones cracking, and disappeared. I watched the news coverage of the mine disaster.

Warren came back a minute later carrying a small picture frame. He stared at it a moment, then shoved it into my hands. “Here. I know I can’t pay you for what you did with Dawson and all that you suffered. But I’d like to give you something, and I thought you might want this.”

I stared at the picture. A fine layer of dust covered the frame, which I wiped away with the edge of my T-shirt.

The picture might have been in color at one time, but it had long ago faded to a dull yellow. Two young men, little more than teenagers, looked up at me. The shorter man was obviously Warren T. Fox. He’d stared into the camera with a serious expression, as though he didn’t like having his picture taken. The other man was Fletcher, whose wide grin more than made up for Warren’s lack of one. They both wore work shirts and overalls. Fishing rods and tackle boxes lay at their feet, along with a string of fish. Trees ringed the area behind them.

“Is this you and Fletcher?” I asked.

Warren settled into his recliner and started rocking again. “It is. Taken a couple of months before he started up the Pork Pit. Last photo we ever took together.”

“Don’t you want to keep it then?”

Warren shrugged. “I don’t need a photo to remind me of Fletcher. Never have.”

He stared at the television, but I still spotted the sheen of moisture in his dark eyes. In that moment, I knew Warren missed Fletcher Lane as much as I did, even if he’d never admit it. And I knew the photo had to be one of his prized possessions. Because it was a symbol of their friendship, of their childhood growing up together, and all the good times and hopes and dreams they’d shared.

I had photos of Fletcher, but none like this. None that showed him being so easy and carefree. None that showed him as he really was, without the calm mask he’d presented to so many people, including me, over the years.

For the first time, I felt like I was seeing the real Fletcher Lane.

And now Warren was giving the photo to me. His gesture touched me in a way nothing had done in a long time. I might have been an assassin for seventeen years, might have killed a lot of people, but helping Warren and Violet Fox was definitely one of the best things I’d ever done.

“All right,” I said. “There’s an empty spot on the wall at the Pork Pit. I think this will go nicely there.”