Three choices.
“You can’t carry her anywhere, dumbass,” Knox grumbled. “You have a damn bullet hole in your side.”
“Just a nick,” Slate replied. He gave Gigi a look. “What’s it going to be, sunshine?”
The shower to cry, the shooting range for a lesson, or the roof to scream?
“Go away,” Gigi said, and then with no ado whatsoever, Knox picked up her and tossed her over his shoulder, the way he had back in the bar.
“Answer the question,” Knox said gruffly. “Andpleasedon’t pick the shower.”
Savannah’s gone, and I’m here. I’m still here, and she might never be again.Gigi could hear the beating of Knox’s heart through his T-shirt. Slate stood, arms still folded over his bare chest, his dark eyes utterly uncompromising and yet somehow almost… gentle.
And Gigi realized:I am still here, and I am not alone.
She had three choices: the shower, the shooting range, or the roof. Gigi looked at Slate, listened to Knox’s heart, andbreathed. “Can I pick all three?”
Chapter 75
LYRA
She looks like me.For Lyra, staring at the only picture Alisa’s people had been able to dig up of Katalin Aquila Reyes felt like looking in a mirror. Objectively, Lyra knew the resemblance wasn’texact. Katalin’s cheekbones were higher, her jaw a little stronger, but hereyesand those thick, dark brows, a match for lashes so long and dark they’d never need mascara—they were Lyra’s, almost exactly. The two of them had the same full lips, the same build. Even the expression on her aunt’s face was familiar.
Genetics were funny that way.
“How old was she when shedied?” Lyra asked. The Katalin in this picture couldn’t have been much older than Lyra was now.
“Twenty-one,” Alisa replied. “Hospital records are conveniently MIA, so we’re still running down the purported cause of death.”
Lyra wasn’t sure it mattered. Katalin Aquila Reyes was the Omega.
I made my choice, that note had said.It wasn’t you.
And it hadn’t been Nora, either.
“It feels pointed, doesn’t it?” Alisa said, raking her gaze over the whiteboards. “The Ascendants have a world of women to choose from, and all three Candidates for this Crucible have a Hawthorne connection.”
Avery. Eve. And Savannah.Even with an ocean separating her from Grayson, Lyraknewhow hard his sister being taken would have hit him. Alisa was right. Itdidfeel pointed.
“Why do you think that is?” Lyra sounded calmer than she felt. On the other side of Alisa, Libby was quiet. She’d been quiet since she’d woken up and padded into the Great Room to find Lyra, first thing this morning.
“When Nora mentionedthe art of the cascade,” Alisa replied, “she did so in a way that referred to more than just Alice. She saidtheycall it the art of the cascade. I think this feels pointed because itispointed. I think Alice was forced into calling this Crucible. I think they all have plans. Zella’s not even an Ascendant, and she somehow arranged for Brady to be one of Avery’s picks for the Grandest Game. There’s no telling how the unfolding of all this has been nudged this way or that—or to what end.”
“Eve put me in the game,” Lyra pointed out, and then she paused. “Or she thought she did.” Buthadit been Eve, really? Alisa was right: There was no way to know.
Lyra looked past Alisa to Libby, whose left hand rested on the subtle curve of her stomach. Her T-shirt bore the wordsWE EAT MORNING PEOPLEright over that curve, and she was staring down at her own hand.
“Are you okay, Libby?” Lyra asked.
Libby touched her wrist lightly, then looked up at the board, at Alice’s poem. “Is it horrible if part of me understands?” Libby said.
“Understands what?” Lyra asked.
“The Gilded Blade,” Libby replied. “Or parts of it.”
“The part about manipulating would-be kings?” Alisa threw out. “Men who would abuse their power?”
“Men,” Libby said quietly, “who abuse women.” She looked down at her wrist again, and this time, Lyra saw the tattoo that wrist bore. It said the wordSURVIVOR.
