“People are neverdone,” Xander said quietly. “We’re always works in progress.”
“Some of us,” Jameson said roughly, “more than others.” He closed his eyes and remembered slipping the infinity ring onto Avery’s finger—her right ring finger, not her left. He’d thought they’d have more time.
All the time in the world.
“Have you found a keyhole yet?” Jameson forced himself to ask Lyra. “One that will let you turn on the projector?”
“It’s small. Oddly shaped. Like a…” Lyra’s next intake of breath was audible. “Like aring.”
“Did Nash give it to you?” Grayson asked, his voice coming out quiet and low and wholly intense. “Alice’s ring?”
“Yes.” Another audible breath from Lyra. “It fits in the keyhole.” She paused. “The projector is on.”
“Constellations?” Grayson guessed.
“They’re cycling through,” Lyra reported, “one after another.”
Rohan beat Jameson to the next and most obvious question. “Which ones?”
It took time and an assist from whoever Lyra had with her, but soon enough, they had their answer.
“Vela, Andromeda, Norma, Triangulum, Ara, Gemini, and Equuleus.”
If you played enough games, certain tricks—like certain patterns—always repeated.
“Only at night,” Jameson murmured.
Grayson knew exactly what he was saying. “The first letters.”
The old man had said that heknewwhere Alice had gone when she disappeared at nineteen, when she’ddieddecades later. He’d known where the Crucible was held.
Vela,Andromeda,Norma,Triangulum,Ara,Gemini,Equuleus.
V-A-N-T-A-G-E.
Chapter 78
ROHAN
Rohan felt the pieces falling into place, one by one. There was an estate, a very old, very large estate in Scotland called Vantage. The Mercy did not own it, but it had for a time, because Rohan had been instructed to obtain it shortly after Vantage had fallen into the possession of one Ian Johnstone-Jameson, an inheritance from Ian’s recently deceasedmother, her family’s ancestral home.
Given what he knew now, Rohan would have wagered a great deal that the property had passed, by royal decree if necessary, to first-borndaughters, until there were none. And then, when it had finally passed to a woman who had only sons, she’d left it to her youngest, most impulsive, and least discerning child. The very son most likely to gamble it away.
Jameson’s father.
It had been easy enough for Rohan to play Ian, to ply him with alcohol and bait him into that very specific wager. And thus Vantage had come into the possession of the Devil’s Mercy. And thus it had been up for grabs in a Game of Rohan’s design, though Alastair had chosen the location for that Game… and the players.
Including Katharine Payne. And the duchess.Rohan felt the labyrinth of his mind rearranging itself just so. Zella hadgiventhe Game to Katharine—or tried to. At the time, Rohan had fully believed Katharine Payne was playing on behalf of Jameson’s uncle Bowen, that she was playing for blackmail material on a political rival, not for Vantage itself.
Misdirection.
Because now it very much appeared that the Gilded Blade had wanted Vantage, had wanted one of their members toopenlyown the place, so that none might question what they did there.
What’s hidden there.From the letters he’d read, Rohan knew the Crucible was held in subterranean chambers, seemingly countless chambers that Rohan had not found in the course of his own exploration of Vantage and the designing of his Game.Why take the risk of sending me there at all? Unless they were confident I would not find anything they did not want me to find.
Unless someone wanted us familiar with the lay of the land—Jameson, me, one or both.
All of this—all of it—hit Rohan in an instant, and in that instant, he was already moving to take Grayson Hawthorne’s phone and hang up on Lyra Kane.
