“And that’s it?” Lyra asked. “That’s everything?”
“Almost everything.” Gigi found a blank spot on the board Xander had called Clyde and drew the Thorp fleur-de-lis, labeling each component part of the symbol as she did. “Lily. Omega.Monoceros.”
Gigi could see it now that she was familiar with the term: The bottom of the fleur-de-lis could have passed for a stylized, pointed horn.Lily. Omega. Monoceros. The Gilded Blade.
“Helena Thorp adopted this symbol as her own,” Gigi explained, “but the necklace she got it from belonged to one of the other Candidates in nineteen fifty-one. Vega, as she was called in the Crucible, came from a certain family line within the Gilded Blade, an ancient, dangerous one. When Calla pulled her disappearing act six years ago, what really happened is that Helena sent her to Vega’s family for training. Based on Nora’s reaction to the fleur-de-lis symbol, I’m betting she’s from that same very dangerous family line.” Gigi paused, then ripped one last bandage off. “And also Noramighthave heavily implied that men who know about all of this stuff tend to die?”
Gigi hadn’t seen any point in holding back, not when Grayson and his brothers already knew so much, but as she said the worddie, she couldn’t help glancing at the lone photograph on the board, at the names written beside that photograph:Edgar and Luiz Aquila Reyes.
Lyra’s story had been chilling.
“On the bright side,” Gigi said, determined to find one, “I was told immunities could be bargained for when a Candidate says yes, and every Y-chromosomer in this room has a close connection to a Candidate, past or present, so we’ve got that working for us.”
Hopefully. Probably.
“You’re all safe enough.”That voice, Gigi thought.That accent—musical and sharp.“For now.”
Gigi whirled, and there Nora was in the archway, backlit like some kind of apparition.
“Where’s Oren?” Grayson’s aunt Zara demanded, immediately goingto DEFCON 1… for values of DEFCON 1 that were poised, polished, and extremely pissed off.
“Close by, I’d wager, with me in his sight,” Nora replied. “I found exactly two weaknesses in his otherwise flawless perimeter, but I never would have gotten this far if John Oren hadn’tallowedme to. The security measures around this place are, in a word,impressive, so I can only assume that Mr. Oren made a strategic decision to use me to test the efficacy of his precautions and that he then allowed me to make my way to all of you because he’s confident he can take me out at any moment—and desperate to hear what I might have to say.”
Nora’s general air of zen about the possibility of beingtaken outwas not comforting, but Gigi did her best to rally before anyone else could launch a welcoming attack. “This is my friend Nora,” Gigi announced. “She’s the sentimental and stone-cold meditative type but also kind of deadly, so let’s all just take a deep breath and—”
Grayson did not take a deep breath. He moved toward Nora like a shark through water, “You,” he said.
“Hello, Grayson.”
Gigi blinked. “You two know each other?”
Nora stepped across the threshold and into the Great Room, moving like a person used to flowing between shadows and light. “Your brother and I met a little over two years ago,” she told Gigi. “At Harvard.”
Chapter 61
LYRA
Lyra watched as Grayson stared down the intruder Gigi had described askind of deadly.
“Now would be a good time to tell me who youreallyare.” Grayson didn’t sharpen the words, and they sounded all the more commanding for it.
“I’m just a girl who was once sent to keep an eye on a wayward Hawthorne boy for a time.” Nora said the phrasejust a girlthe way Grayson had said that he waspassableat playing the piano, and Lyra couldn’t help thinking that the nameNoradidn’t suit her. At all. It seemed too plain, too common, too soft, and this Nora was none of those things.
“It was just one night.” Grayson was all composure.
Nora looked past Grayson to Lyra. “What he really means is that it was just one kiss.”
Lyra let that roll off her back. Any person who could refer to a kiss with Grayson Hawthorne asjustanything clearly hadn’t been kissed the way Lyra had. And fortunately, Lyra Kane was not the jealous type.
“Alice sent you.” Lyra kept her own tone even, daring Nora to tell her she was wrong. “Thenandnow.”
“Until she sent me to Harvard, I had no idea the Woman in WhitewasAlice Hawthorne.” Nora’s gaze found its way back to Grayson. “Perhaps she wanted me to read between those lines, or perhaps she was angling for a different sort of outcome.”
“And now?” Jameson demanded, surging forward. “Why did Alice send youhere? What the hell does she want?”
“What makes you think she sent me at all?” Nora replied.
Lyra half expected Jameson to explode, but he didn’t.
