Rohan came to a sudden and instinctual stop. “The echo in here just changed.” He inched forward, and sure enough, there was a drop-off—and by the sound of it, a small, underground waterfall somewhere beyond.
“What did the inscription say?” Jameson asked.
“Omnes memorantur, non omnes superesse,” a woman’s voice answered from the darkness. “All are remembered, not all survive.”
“Hello, duchess,” Rohan said.
“Did you ever wonder what it meant, Rohan? The statue and that inscription?”
Three necklaces, dozens of bracelets. Three Ascendants… and the web.The Kyrie, apparently, hadn’t rated a special mention.
“A bit sentimental, if you ask me,” Rohan called. “Over the long term, it is a fact that very few are remembered andnonesurvive.” The echo really was extraordinary in here. “Come to hasten us to our respective ends, Zella?”
“As it happens, I owe one of your companions a favor.” The duchess was close to them now. Very close. “Ask me for that favor now, Jameson, and I can get two of you out—and three of you in.”
“Why would any of us need to get out?” Grayson had a handy knack for making questions sound more like threats.
“They know we’re here, don’t they?” Jameson said. “Alice. The other Ascendants.”
“Your grandmother is the reason you’re still alive,” Zella replied. “But Judge or not, she won’t be able to stop what’s coming now. I can save two of you, and the rest, I can give the barest of head starts. Ask me for that favor, Jameson—and choose.”
As if, Rohan thought,there could be any doubt of his choice.
“I’d like that favor now, Zella.”
“There is no way in heaven or hell that I am leaving you here, Jamie,” Grayson bit out.
“Cosigned,” Xander said emphatically. “And not in the fun mathematical way!”
Rohan saved Jameson the agony of replying. “The fewer of us caught here, the more contained the problem will seem.”
Rohan did not intend to becontained, but that was neither here nor there.
“No good-byes,” Jameson told his brothers. “And no regrets.”
And then there were three, Rohan thought as Zella made good on her promise. She got Grayson and Xanderout—and triggered the parting of a stone wall behind the waterfall.
Two of us out. Three of us in—with the barest of head starts.And somewhere, beyond that stone entrance, was Savannah.
“Well, gentlemen,” Rohan told Jameson and Toby, making his way tothe opening and, seeing torchlight beyond it, trading his penlight for a second knife. “It’s been a pleasure.”
Armed and ready—for plan A, for plan B, for any of it or all of it—Rohan took off at a run. Twenty feet in, the torchlit tunnel branched and, soon thereafter, branched again.
A maze. And what will I find at the center?It wasn’t until he hit his third dead end that Rohan heard the footsteps—light, feminine footsteps—and smelled smoke.
Chapter 80
GIGI
It had been an hour since Gigi or anyone else had heard anything. An hour since the last text had come through. There had been eight total—one from Jameson to Nash and another one to Libby, three from Xander to Max, two from Grayson to Lyra plus one that Grayson had sent to Gigi.
Her brother—her infuriating big brother, thebestbig brother—had sent her a picture of a cat. Baby’s first cat meme, and Gigi couldn’t even enjoy it! Over a yowling cat, Grayson had typed the words:You can yell at me when I get back.
And Gigi would! Oh, how she would. She was going to be at the very front of the yelling line, which was really saying something, because that line wasvery long. Nash and Libby were going to kill all three younger Hawthorne brothers. Alisa’s revenge would doubtlessly be epic. Oren had long-since taken his leave, a strike force of one, because any more than that, and they’d run the risk of catastrophic blowback… orfailure.
Wholesale failure.From what they’d been told, if the Crucible failed, the Candidates would die. So Oren had gone alone… or so they’d believed. It had taken Gigi a while to find Slate’s note—on the roof, where she’d gone to scream.
Easy there, sunshine. You’re a force, and I’ll be fine. I always, never am.
