“Your sponsor,” Gigi replied. “You didn’t know her name?”
“I do hope we’re not interrupting,” an accented voice called. Gigi turned just in time to see Rohan stepping into the clearing, Savannah at his side.
“Did I mention that I turned on location sharing with Savannah as soon as I got this phone?” Gigi asked Knox. “On a related note, I’m impressed there’s even cell service out here.”
As Savannah drew closer to them, she held something up. By the time Gigi had realized the object dangling from her sister’s fingers was a necklace, Brady had already surged forward to try to snatch it—trybeing the operative word.
One second, Brady was moving toward Savannah, and the next, he was on the ground. Rohan wasthat fast, like lightning in broad-shouldered, morally nihilistic form.
Gigi glanced at Knox, who didn’t seem to care much that Rohan had just put Brady on his ass. “Where the hell did you get that?” Knox demanded, staring at the necklace.
“They stole it from my bag,” Brady answered. “My sponsor sent it to me as proof that she had information about what happened to Calla after she disappeared.”
“We found the inscription quite fascinating,” Rohan told Brady. “Forthe one to whom it was promised. For the girl who would be queen.I take it your Calla was quite the princess?”
The only girl born into her family in three generations, Gigi thought, her head pounding.
“Calla was no princess.” Brady climbed back to his feet and turned to Knox. “Admit it, Knox. Something is very wrong. Calla needs us. All these years, Itold you—
“And I told you: Callaleft.” Knox brutally grabbed the collar of his own shirt. The moment he did, Gigi knew:We shouldn’t be here. Not me. Not Savannah. Not Rohan.As Knox bared the brutal scar at the base of his neck, the one he’d calleda Calla Thorp good-bye, Gigi did the only thing she could think of to do: She turned and fled.
“Savannah,” Gigi called back over her shoulder. “Come on.” This was between Knox and Brady and no one else.
But Savannah didn’t come.
“The night Callaleft”—Knox’s voice reached Gigi no matter how hard she tried to block it out—“she told me to meet her here at midnight. I was standingright herewhen Calla dug the head of an arrow into the base of my throat and warned me not to come after her, not to look for her. Ever. She made it crystal clear to me that she was meant for greater things than St. Adelaide Parish and abarely literate, backwoods nobody who’s broken inside and always will be.”
Gigi stumbled in the dark, her hearthurtingfor Knox, because it couldn’t have been more obvious that the words he’d just said were a direct quote. Belatedly, Gigi remembered her flashlight. Her eyes tearing up, she shined it on the ground in front of her—and then she stopped.
Stopped fleeing. Stopped breathing. Stopped thinking in words.
Because there, at her feet, artfully arranged on a massive, twisted root, was an enormous white calla lily.
Chapter 10
LYRA
A person could only play chess against herself so many times before giving into the urge to ransack dozens of online historical databases for information related to mysterious cloaked women who sat injudgmentof others—women whowatched, women whosehandswielded blades.
If you know where to look, Odette had promised,history tells the tale.
Well, Lyra apparently didn’t know how or where to look. It had beenhours—hours she’d spent alone, locked down at Toby’s place, hours during which Grayson had been doing who-knows-what to try to get that file out of Eve.
And still, Lyra had found nothing.
She should have been used to that—finding nothing. She’d spent years unable to piece together answers about her father’s death, about the Hawthorne family’s involvement in it. But the Grandest Game had changed everything.
Graysonhad.
Together, he and Lyra had solved riddles that Lyra hadn’t even realizedwereriddles. They were so close to finding answers Lyra had wanted for so long, but this was bigger than that now, bigger than Lyra.
As she waited for Grayson to return, she kept thinking about his words back on Hawthorne Island, when he’d said that hewouldchoose her, not over his family but as a part of it. It defied all logic that he could be that sure of this thing between them so soon, but Lyra knew he’d meant it. Grayson Hawthorne was a man made for oaths, the kind of person who would never make a declaration like that lightly. Family meant everything to him. And Lyra knew that Avery Grambs was at the very heart of Grayson’s family. Grayson would have died for her, no questions asked, and Lyra was absolutely certain that if Avery wasn’t okay, Grayson wouldn’t be okay, either.
Not ever again.
Where the hell is he?Lyra thought. The sun had long-since set. The entire day had passed. Lyra had slept—not much but some. She’d dreamed, and in her dreams, she’d heard her father’s voice, heard him pronouncing her name wrong, heard her preschool teachers saying how very alike the two of them looked.
What’s taking so long?The more time passed, the more Lyra regretted not going with Grayson. She’d agreed that he’d stand a better chance of getting information out of Eve alone, but Lyra had made a deal with Grayson back on Hawthorne Island: She got to pull him back from cliffs, too, and she couldn’t do that if she wasn’t with him.
