Glorious Rivals (The Grandest Game, #2) (94)

“You can’t mean that,” Lyra replied. “It’s only been three days.”

“Try telling me again,” Grayson suggested silkily, “what I can and cannot mean.”

Before she could say a word, his watch buzzed. Grayson looked down at it, expecting a return message in response to the warning he’d sent, but instead, an image had taken over the face of the watch.

A diamond.

After three or four seconds, the diamond dissolved, only to be replaced with words. A PLAYER HAS REACHED THE FINAL PUZZLE.

“A player,” Lyra said out loud, having received the same message. “A Diamond—Rohan or Savannah.”

Grayson looked back out at the ocean. They could try taking the long way down, try to track a threat that was probably already long gone—or they could see this through, make one last attempt to give Lyra the ability to save Mile’s End, one last attempt to save Grayson’s sister from herself.

“Emily Dickinson,” Lyra said, as intense and intent as any Hawthorne. “We’re headed back to the house—to the library.”





Chapter 81





ROHAN


Rohan ignored the buzzing at his wrist, not even blinking as he opened a leatherbound copy of Emily Dickinson poems. The pages inside had been hollowed out.

Sitting there, staring back at Rohan, there was a silver charm—a quill—and beside it, much larger, there was a gleaming, metallic gear. Platinum. Rohan removed first the charm, then the gear, and the moment he lifted the latter, he heard a compartment opening in the floor behind him.

He whirled. The ledger. Rohan had it in his hands in an instant. He flipped it open to a single name, the only player in this game who’d beat him here.

Savannah. Rohan could make out the places she’d dripped on the floor easily enough, and as expert as he usually was at locking memories away in the labyrinth of his mind, Savannah Grayson’s words down on the dock haunted him.

I never gave you permission to be the one who ended things.

All you get to decide is whether you are really that scared. Of me.

When I win, I’ll give you the—

Rohan cut Savannah’s vow off in his mind. Only a fool would rely on the promise of a woman he’d scorned. As he pressed his watch to the ledger, Rohan registered the message he’d received and ignored.

A PLAYER HAS REACHED THE FINAL PUZZLE.

Of course she had. Rohan did not know whether to be gratified or infuriated that the Grandest Game—and his future, the Mercy—was going to come down to this. To the two of them—on her terms, not his.

Rohan returned the ledger. The compartment closed, and as Savannah obviously had before him, Rohan descended the spiral staircase from the fifth floor to the fourth, from the fourth to third and then down one more story, to a door covered in gears of bronze, silver, and gold—but not completely covered.

There were gaps here and there—one fewer, Rohan would wager, than there had been before. He pressed his gear to the door, into one of those open spots, and the moment he did, all the other gears began to turn.

A lock clicked.

The door swung outward.

Rohan stepped across the threshold—and onto a ledger.

He added his name below Savannah’s. Where are you, love? He assessed the rest of the room. The floor was made entirely of stained glass, a rainbow of tiles in every shade imaginable, no two squares exactly the same hue. Hanging from the ceiling were strings of sparkling jewels—dozens of precious stones and crystals, suspended midair in a room that seemed to be made of light.

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.