The Brothers Hawthorne (The Inheritance Games, #4)(84)

“Watch yourself,” Avery murmured. She had this way of speaking to herself where her voice went quiet and her lips barely moved. Jameson had always loved the feeling of eavesdropping on her thoughts, letting them weave in and out of his own. “And the remaining verbal clues,” Avery continued, “the most likely ones at least—are the idioms. Leave no stone unturned and no rest for the wicked.”

Unbidden, the image of the stone garden came back to Jameson. Thousands upon thousands of stones had paved the ground. Maybe what they were looking for was there, but Jameson wasn’t about to risk this game on maybes.

Not when his gut was telling him there might be something else here in this room to point the way to the correct stone.

Not when he could almost taste the win.

“No stone unturned,” Jameson repeated, echoing Avery’s words back to her. “And no rest for the wicked.”

It was the second phrase that held his attention now. Rohan had said it in an offhanded, charming kind of way, the words directed at Zella, but Jameson knew in his gut that the Factotum was one of those people who could make anything seem offhand.

And charming.

No rest for the wicked, my dear. Jameson let the words play in his mind over and over. But it would hardly be sporting if I hadn’t given you everything you needed to win.

What were the chances that Rohan had given them what they needed in that exact moment, just a sentence before?

“No rest for the wicked.” Jameson said the words again, the pace of his speech speeding up, his heart rate doing the same. “Biblical in origin. Popularly used to mean that work never stops, but in the context of the Devil’s Mercy, it could imply that there are always more sins to be had… or that the wicked are given no peace.”

“No peace,” Avery repeated. “No reprieve. No mercy.” She locked her fathomless gaze on his. “Biblically, that would mean what? Fire and brimstone?”

Hellfire, Jameson thought. Damnation. The Devil’s Mercy. Those three things cycled through his mind, faster and faster, louder and louder until the words felt like they were coming from outside him.

And then Jameson’s gaze locked on to the stone fireplace, and his mind went silent.

Avery followed the direction of his gaze. Without either one of them saying a word, they both began to move—back to the fireplace.

“What do you think the chances are,” Jameson asked Avery, “that somewhere in this not-a-castle, we’ll find something to help us start a fire?”





CHAPTER 68





JAMESON


They found matches in the kitchen in a drawer near the stove. All too aware of each minute that passed—of the fact that elsewhere on this grand cliffside estate, the competition was playing for the same prize—Jameson raced back to the start once more.

This time, Avery beat him there. She was fast when she wanted to be. Single-minded. She skidded to a stop just past the doorway, and as Jameson did the same behind her, he saw why.

Zella was in the room, sitting on top of the table. She ran her fingers along the open and empty compartment. “Your doing, I hope? Branford can’t have all the fun. He’ll be insufferable.”

In other words: The duchess knew that Branford had found the first key. Given that Zella also seemed to have realized that a second had been found here, she had to be thinking that she had just one chance left for this game to go her way.

She doesn’t seem bothered by that. Jameson rolled that thought over in his mind for a moment or two, which was just long enough for Zella to notice what he held in his hand.

“Matches?” The duchess studied them—then her gaze flicked to the fireplace. “No rest for the wicked. Of course Rohan would play it this way.”

Something in her tone made Jameson wonder just how much history the duchess and the Factotum had—and what sort.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” Zella said, strolling across the room to stand beside the fireplace. “Light it up.”

Jameson considered his next move carefully. Doing this in her presence will put us on even footing—but if we don’t do it, we’ll have to wait until she leaves. Who knew what Branford and Katharine would be doing in the meantime—or what they might find?

“If there’s a key in there,” Avery said, her chin coming up as she met Zella’s eyes, “it’s ours.”

“There isn’t a key in there, Heiress,” Zella replied. On the duchess’s tongue, Jameson’s nickname for Avery sounded wry and pointed. “Two in one room? I hardly think so. But, yes, certainly. If you set that fire and immediately find a key, consider it yours.”

Zella picked up a log from the wall, and Jameson realized that although he and Avery had left the logs on the floor, they were stacked neatly now.

She saw them. She read the words. And then she put them back, so no one else would read them.

“Can we even burn those logs?” Avery’s voice broke into Jameson’s thoughts. “Didn’t our instructions say to leave everything in the condition in which we found it?”

Jameson saw the logic in her questions. “You can’t unburn a log.” He hadn’t come this far to be disqualified on a technicality. “We need something else to burn.”

Without missing a beat, Jameson began unbuttoning his waistcoat. Securing the key—temporarily—between his teeth, he took off the waistcoat, then the shirt underneath. Slipping the waistcoat back on, his chest now bare beneath it, Jameson tossed his shirt into the fireplace.