Glorious Rivals(13)
“Look around,” Avery told the players. “Only one of you can win this year’s Grandest Game, but in a very real sense, none of you are in this alone.” The heiress lifted her arm and Jameson’s over their heads, their fingers intertwined, and Rohan noticed a ring on Avery’s right ring finger bearing a symbol he knew all too well: a lemniscate. Infinity.
“You’ll find your first clue in the Great Room,” Jameson announced. “In three…”
“Two…，” Avery said.
One. As the countdown hit zero, Rohan took off, a bullet through the night, fully confident in his ability to win this race. Lyra Kane was a distance runner, made for endurance, not sprints; Brady’s solid build would slow him down; Grayson would hold back to guard Lyra. And Savannah…
As Rohan edged back around the base of the cliff, Savannah tore right through the water at high speed. Within two breaths, they were both running, full-out, along the shore. Rohan knew that it did not matter, in theory, which of them got to the Great Room first, so long as they beat the competition to their destination. And yet…
He could not quite restrain himself from cutting her off. “I have four inches on you, love. Enjoy the view from behind.”
Up the cliff. Around the front. Into the house. Rohan made it to the Great Room less than five seconds before Savannah did. He’d fully intended to allow her entrance then lock the others out, but the door to the Great Room had been removed.
Coming to a standstill at the threshold, Rohan took in the sight before him.
“Dominoes,” Savannah said, scanning the pattern: thousands of dominoes, made of gold and positioned just so, lines and loops, a complicated design covering the entire Great Room except for a narrow path that went from the door to a round table that stood at the center of the room. All other furniture had been removed.
Savannah stepped foot on the path, just as Brady hit the foyer.
“Tread carefully, love.” Rohan eyed the dominoes.
Savannah didn’t so much as look back or break her stride. “Don’t call me love.”
Rohan took to the path himself, and Brady followed Rohan, and in less than a minute, all five of the players were standing around the circular table. Its top was made of rings of metal—bronze around the outside, then silver, then gold. On it were five crystal champagne flutes bearing deep red liquid.
Rohan plucked one into the air, examining the design of the flute. Cut into the crystal, there was an H. His mind already fast at work, Rohan made a show of taking a sip. “Tastes of pomegranate. Mythologically speaking, I might be stuck here now.”
A pomegranate cocktail. A round table. A crystal H. Rohan’s gaze slid over the complicated, swirling lines of dominoes on the floor as the other players each claimed a glass.
The moment the last glass was lifted off the table, the first domino fell. The click of golden tile against golden tile became a roar as one line of dominoes triggered two more triggered two more, until all around the room, swirls and loops and lines were going off at all once.
Like fireworks.
The metal rings on the tabletop began to move. They split down the center, separating to reveal a compartment underneath. In it were five golden objects. Darts.
Savannah moved to grab one, but Rohan intercepted her, his touch stilling her hand as he took the lay of the land. The five darts were arranged like a flower or a star, needle-sharp tips in the center, flights to the outside. Around the display, words had been carved into the wood of the table, curving around the darts.
“Every story has its beginning…，” Rohan read aloud. “Take only one.”
Chapter 12
GIGI
Gigi’s interrogation could have been going better. Her target had the silent, broody thing down. She was having about as much success as she would have cheerfully interrogating a tangerine.
A tangerine with an eyebrow scar, jagged tattoos, and pecs of steel. That last bit was an extrapolation, but Gigi had great faith in her ability to extrapolate about chest muscles. All muscles, really. Fortunately, she also had faith in the power of persistence.
Eventually, Code Name Mimosas would break. They all did, sooner or later.
“Let’s play a game,” Gigi said, like her captor hadn’t been very effectively ignoring her for hours. “It’s called True or False.”
Based on the total lack of light coming from the cracks in the stone wall, Gigi knew that it was dark outside—and had been for a while now. The only reason she could even still see Mimosas was that when the last of the light from the outside had faded, he’d lit a candle, which was now sitting on the floor in a heavy silver candleholder that looked like it had been plucked straight out of the eighteenth century.
“I don’t play games.”
He responded! Now that Gigi’s target had cracked open the metaphorical window, all she had to do was limbo in, Reverse Heist style.
“Okay,” Gigi chirped. “Then let’s play a game. It’s called Negative or Affirmative.”
“That’s the same game.”
Gigi smiled winningly. “In fairness, I reversed the order. But fine, if you want to be that way, then let’s play a game. It’s called Yeppers or Nope.”
This time, her kidnapper leaned back against the door and said absolutely nothing.
Challenge accepted. “I can do this all day, tangerine. Let’s play a game. It’s called Computer. You’re the computer. The game is in binary. Zero is no. One is yes.”