Glorious Rivals (The Grandest Game, #2) (74)

Gigi got the distinct feeling that Eve didn’t like to share. “True or false,” she said. “The two of you are the kind of employee and employer who make out sometimes.”

Silence. Complete and utter silence. And then came the sound of the wall parting.

Gigi whirled and saw a figure in red. The woman. She was back. Cloak billowing, she crossed the room, her red boots making not a single sound as she did. “Juliet Grayson. Evelyn Blake. Mattias Slater.”

Her voice. That voice. It sounds…

Their captor came to a stop in front of Slate and lifted a red gloved hand to the side of his face. Slate didn’t flinch, didn’t even blink as she trailed gloved fingers over his skin.

Without warning, Slate slumped.

“Slate!” Eve lunged toward him, putting herself in front of him, cupping his head and feeling for a pulse on his neck.

Gigi just stood there, frozen. Taking in the details. Silent footsteps—but before, they were audible. And her voice…

“Who are you?” Gigi asked. Not the same voice as before. Not the same woman.

“I am no one,” came the reply, “by design.”

Gigi finally got her legs to work. She scurried to stand next to Eve. “She’s not the one who brought us here,” Gigi whispered.

“No,” Eve said, not bothering to mute her tone. “She’s not.”

She’s the one who took the bait. Gigi’s eyes darted toward Slate. “Is he—”

“Unharmed.” That came from the woman in red—but this time, Gigi couldn’t help thinking of her differently. The Woman in Red. Not just a descriptor. A title. A name. No one by design.

“Who are you?” Eve turned Gigi’s question into an accusation.

“So demanding. So sure of yourself.” There was a frightful neutrality to the Woman in Red’s voice, and Gigi thought about the way she’d rendered Slate unconscious with a single touch.

“And who are you again?” Gigi was perfectly capable of being a broken record.

“I am the one who has the right to wear this cloak,” the Woman in Red said. “Unlike the impostor who took you, I am not playacting. I am not a pretender. I am the Lily. I am the Watcher.” She lifted a hand to the red veil over her face, and with a single movement, she peeled back the fabric over her eyes—and only her eyes. “And I have questions for the two of you.”





Chapter 63





LYRA


Lyra and Grayson ran the island, side by side. They were missing something. That couldn’t have been clearer. The ledger, for one, Lyra thought. As she and Grayson ran, their bodies fell into a steady, rhythmic pace, and even when their feet didn’t hit the ground at the exact same time, Lyra could feel Grayson’s body like an extension of her own—and his thoughts as an extension of that.

His conversation with Savannah had not gone well. We need to win the game—for his sake as much as mine. As they hit the Eastern shore and began to loop back, Lyra let the words of their latest riddle rise to the surface of her mind once more.

Often

Never

Little late

You

And two

Too much, too great…

“Three twos,” she noted out loud. Two, too, too…

“Technically…” Grayson’s gaze stayed locked on the path they were running. “There are four.”

Lyra worked her way through the rest of the riddle, looking for the fourth.

Never, ever

I trap you not

Go now

How

To shoot your shot.

And there it was on the final line—to. Spoken aloud, the same syllable repeated itself four times over the course of the riddle: two, too, too, to.

Lyra pushed her pace up, and Grayson did the same. The wind was fierce today, the kind of wind that came at Lyra from all sides, a little chaotic, impossible to ignore. Her face was starting to feel chapped, and her body ached, a reminder that they’d stayed up all night, a reminder that sooner or later, she would hit a wall.

Beside her, Grayson gave every impression of being someone who didn’t even know what a wall was. “Four twos,” he pointed out, “is eight.”

“The dice?” Lyra let that thought take hold in her mind.

“Maybe. Maybe not.” Grayson was a rhythmic runner, each stride exactly the length of his last. “It matters that we still haven’t fully solved the prior puzzle.”

“No ledger,” Lyra said, verbalizing her earlier thoughts. “We missed something.” She let the ache in her muscles crystallize her focus. “You might even say we’re missing the forest for the trees.”

When they rounded back and the tree line came into view once more, Grayson skirted it, looping to the south. Lyra followed his lead and started back at the beginning of their clue.

Often

Never

Little late

“Time,” she said out loud. “That’s the pattern in the first three lines.”

“Often. Never. Little late.” Grayson got there in an instant. “Time could signify a clock. An hourglass.”

“Our watches?” Lyra suggested, then she preempted his reply. “That’s a stretch.” Up ahead of them, light hit two giant stones at the edge of the forest just so. “Do you see that?” Lyra asked Grayson.