Glorious Rivals(94)

It would have made for a dazzling finale, but Savannah was nowhere to be seen, which meant that Rohan was still behind. He hadn’t reached the final puzzle yet.

But she hasn’t solved it. Rohan had to believe that all of the players would have been informed if Savannah had finished the game, and that meant that he hadn’t lost yet. I just have to catch up.

Pacing the edges of the room, Rohan took in each and every string of jewels. Different colors. Different sizes. There was even a geode or two. He processed that—processed everything about this room, all at once, including the pattern of the water that Savannah had dripped onto the colored tiles. It looked like she’d traversed nearly the entire room. Doing what?

Rohan came to the spot with the biggest puddle, the spot where she’d stood dripping the longest. He knelt, examining the tile there. It wouldn’t come up, but when he put his palm flat against it and pressed down, words appeared for a second or two.

PAY THE TOLL.

Rohan knew better than most: Everything came at a cost.

But what cost? He tilted his gaze up to look again at the riches dangling from the ceiling, a veritable maze of shining, sparkling things. What toll?

Refusing to even consider a process of trial and error, Rohan looked back down at the tile he’d found, indigo in color, perhaps eighteen inches by eighteen inches, translucent enough for light to shine through.

In fact… Rohan shifted, dropping his chest to the floor, bringing his eyes very nearly level with the tile. He depressed it again. No words this time, but enough light shined up through it that, for a split second, he was able to see through to what lay underneath.

The object in question lay coiled beneath the surface like a snake, and though Rohan could not make out much more than its silhouette, he recognized it immediately.

Savannah’s chain.

Rohan knew then how she had paid the toll—with a form of payment that wasn’t an option for any other player. For days, Savannah had worn that platinum chain wound around her waist, and then she’d opened this room with a gleaming, precious-metal gear, and when a toll had been requested…

She’d paid.

Rohan did not have time to dither, to wonder, to curse himself for not removing her advantage earlier. Unlike Savannah, he had no trump card to play here, no ability to shortcut this puzzle. He needed an answer. What toll? Rohan looked up again, scanning the items hanging from the ceiling, and then he stood, walking through them, zigging, zagging. Which item?

Which object?

It hit him—hard and all at once. There is one object left in this game that has never been used in any way, shape, or form. Rohan reached for his pocket, for his dice. He went back to the indigo tile and placed them on its surface. When that didn’t work, he tried rolling them.

Still nothing.

Rohan did not have time for this. The Mercy hung in the balance. Promises were no harder to break than glass. He punched a closed fist into the indigo tile—not hard enough to shatter it but hard enough to hurt.

With pain came clarity. Rohan needed that clarity. To his surprise, the second time he punched the tile, another word flashed across its surface.

LOVELY.

Rohan’s mind raced. Pay the toll. Lovely. He hit the indigo tile again and again and again until another word appeared. ALLURING.

Overhead, riches awaited, and these descriptions—they could describe any of them. Lovely. Alluring. Rohan would beat his knuckles raw if he had to, but it didn’t come to that, because the next word to flash across the tile was PRINCE.

Rohan let out a low and rumbling chuckle. Lovely. Alluring. Prince—

“Charming,” Rohan murmured. The jewels hanging from the ceiling were nothing but a lovely bit of misdirection. The dice were not the only objects left in this game. “The charms.”

There was a sound behind him, then—turning gears. Company, incoming.

Rohan moved like lighting, dropping his charm bracelet and the attached charms onto the indigo tile. When that yielded no effect, he tore the charms off one by one.

The sword.

The clock.

The music note.

The tree.

The quill.

He dropped the charms—and only the charms—onto the tile, and the effect was immediate. The five bits of precious silver rearranged themselves, each pulled with what had to be some kind of magnetic force to a specific location on the tile.

Not silver, Rohan realized, but steel.

The door behind him opened, but Rohan didn’t even look back. Together, the five charms now formed an arrow. The indigo tile dropped, causing his charms to fall into the compartment below—his toll, accepted, and the wall that the arrow had pointed to parted.

Rohan dashed through the opening, and the watch on his wrist vibrated, the same message as before.

A PLAYER HAS REACHED THE FINAL PUZZLE.

The wall closed behind Rohan, and he turned back just long enough to catch sight of Lyra Kane and Grayson Hawthorne.

How much did they see? Rohan dismissed the question. He did not have time for questions. Before him, there was a darkened staircase. Rohan resisted the urge to run down it and was rewarded when he noticed something—besides water—on the second step down. Earbuds. Multiple pairs. Rohan plucked a set up and plugged them into his ears.

As he descended the remaining stairs, the voice of Avery Grambs rang in his ears. “Biggest, smallest, white, red,” the voice said. “Do you know the question yet?”