"Shouldn't you be asleep like everyone else?" I asked Jo-Jo, as I opened the kitchen cabinets to see what supplies were on hand for a late breakfast.
"I slept plenty before I spelled Sophia from guard duty," Jo-Jo said. "Now, I'm restless, just like you are. "
I grunted. Restless wasn't quite the word that I would use to describe my mood. More like resigned. I pushed the feeling aside and started pulling ingredients out of the cabinets. Flour, sugar, salt, and all the other nonperishable staples that Fletcher had packed the cabin with. If I was going to go out today, then I wanted a good breakfast to help me along.
"I grabbed fresh milk, berries, butter, and a few other things from my fridge before coming over here last night," Jo-Jo said. "Just in case you were inclined to feel like making breakfast this morning. "
I arched an eyebrow. "Got a glimpse of that with your Air magic, did you? Your precognition?"
Jo-Jo grinned.
"Tell me," I murmured, opening the fridge and grabbing the milk. "Did you happen to see whether I manage to kill Mab today before she kills me? Because right now, I'd take any good news I could get. "
Instead of answering me, Jo-Jo stared down into her tea, as though she could read something in the leaves in the bottom of the mug. Hell, maybe she could, given her Air magic. After a moment, the dwarf seemed to decide something because she nodded and looked up at me with her clear eyes.
"Did I ever tell you how I first met Fletcher?"
I shook my head and moved over to the counter where I'd placed the rest of the ingredients.
"It was a week after Sophia was kidnapped. "
I jerked around in surprise, and the milk almost slipped from my hands. "Sophia-Sophia was kidnapped? When? By whom?"
Jo-Jo's hands tightened around her mug. "It happened almost fifty years ago. There was a sick, sadistic bastard by the name of Harley Grimes. Half giant, half dwarf, and all mean. Grimes and the rest of his clan of miscreants lived way up in the mountains, even farther up than Warren's store, Country Daze. He saw Sophia one day, and he decided that he was going to have her. When I wouldn't give her to him, he came into my salon and took her. Busted up the place, beat me real bad, then beat Sophia when she tried to stop him. "
Breakfast forgotten, I slid into the seat across from Jo-Jo.
Jo-Jo's eyes clouded over, like she was reliving that terrible day-the day that her sister had been taken from her. I knew what she must be feeling all too well. The rage, the frustration, the helplessness. They all pulsed through me with every beat of my heart.
"I went after Grimes, of course, but I couldn't find my way up the mountain to his hideout, and I couldn't get past all the booby traps that he had strung through the woods. Besides, my magic is for healing, not killing. But I'd heard stories about someone who could help, who could kill, for the right price. "
"The Tin Man," I whispered Fletcher's assassin name.
Jo-Jo nodded. "So I went through the appropriate channels, and I made contact with him. I told Fletcher that if he brought Sophia back I would be his friend for life-that anything I had would be his, including my Air magic. He agreed to my deal and took off after Sophia. "
I could almost see the scene unfolding before my eyes. Fletcher, tall, strong, and in his prime as an assassin. Jo-Jo, desperate for her sister's safe return. And Sophia-no, I couldn't picture Sophia. Not as she might have been back then. Before-before her innocence was taken away from her.
"What-what did Grimes do to Sophia?" I asked.
Tears welled up in Jo-Jo's eyes and trickled down her face. "Just about every awful thing that you can imagine. Rape, torture, beatings. He made her into a slave, made her work from sunup until sundown, then come in and warm his bed at night. Grimes and one of his brothers had some Fire magic in them. The two of them would spend hours torturing her with it-burning her, blistering her skin, even making her breathe it in like cigarette smoke. "
An odd thought crossed my mind. "Is that-is that why Sophia's voice is the way it is? So raspy and broken? Because Grimes made her breathe in elemental Fire?"
Jo-Jo nodded. "It damaged her vocal cords something fierce. I offered to fix it for her with my Air magic, but she wouldn't let me. She just-wouldn't. "
I leaned over and grabbed Jo-Jo's hand, trying to offer her what comfort I could, even though I hadn't even been born when all of this had happened. But so much made sense to me now. Why Fletcher had such a close relationship with the Deveraux sisters, why they'd helped him so much all these years, even why Sophia was the way that she was-moody, withdrawn, broken. My heart ached for the Goth dwarf. My torment at the hands of Mab had been nothing compared to what she'd endured.
Jo-Jo swiped away her tears and continued with her story. "Fletcher kept his word. He went up that mountain, and he did what I asked him to do, what he'd trained himself to do as the Tin Man. It took him two weeks of guerrilla warfare tactics, but he killed a whole passel of Grimes's men and hurt Grimes himself real bad. Fletcher would have killed the bastard, if one of Grimes's men hadn't gutshot Fletcher. He was almost dead when he showed up on my front porch, but Fletcher rescued Sophia and brought her back home to me. And he made sure that Grimes never bothered us again. Every time that bastard came sniffing around, Fletcher let him know exactly what would happen-that Fletcher would finish the job he started and kill Grimes if he didn't stay up there on his damn mountain and leave us alone. "
Jo-Jo fell silent, lost in her thoughts once more. Then she looked at me again, a fierce light burning in her pale eyes.
"Fletcher Lane was the finest man that I ever met, and he was certainly the best assassin. But you know what, Gin? Fletcher told me something a few weeks before he died-something about you. "
"And what would that be?" I asked, even though I wasn't sure I wanted to hear the answer.
Jo-Jo speared me with a hard look. "He told me that you were even better than he was. That you had the kind of cold, iron will that few people have. That you weren't afraid to do what needed to be done. But the most important thing he told me was this-that if anyone could kill Mab, it was you. Don't you see, Gin? It's what he's been preparing you for all these years. It's why he trained you in the first place, it's why he made you into the Spider. So you could do what needed to be done to save your sister, just like he saved mine all those years ago. "
Jo-Jo drew in a breath. "That's why I'm telling you this now. If Sophia could survive all the horrible things Grimes did to her, then you can survive Mab too, just like you did when you were a little girl. And I need you to survive, Gin. We all do. We lost Fletcher already. We can't lose you too. "