Glorious Rivals(17)

“A true Hawthorne game,” Grayson replied. “Nearly every puzzle sequence my grandfather ever designed started with a collection of objects just like this.” Grayson paused, his gaze lingering on the objects, one by one. “Keys were a favorite of the old man’s.”

Keys—and knives. Rings. Glass. Grayson thought for the first time in years about a specific object in a specific game: a glass ballerina.

“Did your grandmother play the same kind of games?” Lyra asked.

Alice. “I wouldn’t know,” Grayson said. That was the truth, but it was also dissembling as a matter of precaution. Jameson had been very clear that any talk of Alice was a liability.

“My dreams are starting to feel like one of your grandfather’s games,” Lyra said beside him. “Like my father laid an array of objects and riddles out before me, right before he died. Omega. A Hawthorne did this. A calla lily. A necklace with three pieces of candy.” Lyra’s eyes found his like flames cutting through night. “Three, Grayson.”

There are always three. Grayson let that thought come.

“With a Hawthorne game, how do you know what any of it means?” Lyra pressed.

Grayson felt the pull to delve into this mystery with her, but he had given Jameson until the end of the game, and his word was his bond. “The only way to ever really know what any element of a Hawthorne game means,” Grayson said, reaching for his champagne flute and redirecting Lyra’s attention, “is to play.” He lifted the crystal to his lips, taking a taste. “Pomegranate—and a hint of elderflower liqueur.”

Lyra mirrored his action, taking a sip out of her own flute.

Grayson did his best not to dwell on the shape of her lips. “The drink. The glass. The dart.” He paused, just a fraction of a second, holding her gaze. “The numbers from the dominoes and the dice. The sword. The key.”

Grayson saw the exact moment that he had her—here, now, focused on the game, safe. And still, he knew that this victory was temporary.

Lyra Catalina Kane was not the type to back down—from anything—for long.

Chapter 15

ROHAN

Rohan surveyed the room around him. The fifth-floor library was circular, its curved shelves stocked with what had to be at least a thousand books. Rohan trailed his hand along spine after spine, committing the titles of the books to memory and waiting for Savannah to say it.

“Use me again to get to my brother, and you will find yourself flat on your back and seeing stars.” The lady did not disappoint. Rohan admired her restraint, given that she’d waited until they were well and truly alone to issue those words in that cut-crystal voice of hers.

“Is that a promise?” Rohan replied, his inflection just wicked enough to make it clear that the prospect of being flat on his back was not altogether unappealing. There was, after all, more than one way to see stars.

He began to circle the room, and Savannah blocked him. “What are we doing up here?” She punctuated that question with a hand on Rohan’s chest.

He shifted his gaze from the books on the shelves to the champagne glass in Savannah’s other hand. “You should try it.” He nodded to the liquid in the flute.

“If I work up a thirst, perhaps I will. My question remains.”

She wanted to know what they were doing here. Rohan obliged her. “Stained glass on the ceiling. Shelves. Books.” He held Savannah’s silvery gaze for a moment longer, then side-stepped her and continued his circuit of the room. “Ever work a maze, love? Start at the beginning and there might be dozens of wrong turns you can take, dozens of dead ends. But start at the end of the maze and work your way back, and you’ll find far fewer. In a game that goes from clue to clue, each puzzle’s solution must point to the location of the next clue.”

“Landmarks.” Savannah’s icy blue-gray eyes narrowed very slightly, emphasizing the equally slight widening of her pupils.

“Landmarks—or notable objects.” Rohan finished his circuit of the room. “A finite number of solutions, no matter how dazzlingly complicated the puzzles. Perhaps there’s a book on those shelves whose title relates somehow to darts—or targets. Perhaps not. But the fact that we’ve been up here, that we’ve reminded ourselves of the contents of this room, will open our mind to possible answers—for this clue and the next and the next.”

With that, Rohan headed for the spiral staircase. They had more ground to cover. “For the record?” he said, beginning his descent. “I wasn’t using you to get to Grayson downstairs. I was allowing you to use me.” Rohan had overheard Savannah’s warning to Lyra at the bonfire, and he’d inherently understood that Savannah had not just been talking about Lyra falling into the Hawthorne trap.

When Savannah had said he won’t choose you, she’d been speaking from experience.

“Your brother hurt you.” Rohan took his life in his own hand by daring to say that out loud. “Badly.”

“Half brother, and I’ve told you before: I do not do anything badly.” Savannah’s control was absolute. “Steps,” she noted pointedly. “A railing.” Possible end points to clues. They came to the fourth-floor landing, and Savannah continued, “Seven bedrooms. A clock.”

“Not just a clock.” Rohan took note of the minute and hour hands, the Roman numerals showing the time. “It’s thirty seconds faster than our watches.”