“What are they?” Gigi asked Slate.
“The Blake family seals. Eve’s great-grandfather had them made as a way of controlling his family and the people who worked for him. Favor could be given, and favor could be taken away. If you had a seal, you were one of the Blake heirs.” Slate stared at the bits of metal. “I was six the first time I saw one. My father was a minor Blake cousin, but he’d earned it.”
Slate did not specify what his father had done to earn a seal, but based on the way he’d said the wordearned, Gigi was guessing it hadn’t beengood. Or legal.
“I lost my father’s seal for him a few years later—cost of trying to do the right thing.”
I’m always at my most dangerous, Slate had told Gigi once,when my intentions are good.
“Eventually,” Slate continued with effort, “Eve ended up with all five seals, old man Blake’s one and only heir. In the months leading up tohis death, vipers came at her from all sides, trying to knock her down or take her out.”
“And you protected her.” Gigi was sure of that. “You were on Eve’s side, always. Andshe shot you.”
“Nicked me—and left me all five seals.”
“And a note.” Knox sounded pissed—more pissed, even, than usual. “What does it say?”
Slate nodded toward the note. “Go ahead, sunshine.”
Gigi unfolded it. There wasn’t a single word on the page, just four black lines—less hashmarks thanclawmarks. Gigi’s gaze went to the tattoos on Slate’s arm, even as her mind went to the sheath of his knife—the knife she’d lost the night before in the garden.
“Shooting me,” Slate told Gigi, “that was Eve’snumber four.”
“Horrible things,” Gigi said. That was what Slate had said the marks in the leather of his sheath stood for: horrible things he’d done.
“Unforgivable things,” Slate replied.
“But you’ve already forgiven her.” Gigi gave Slate a look. “You stealth optimist, you. She shot you, and you’restillgoing to look for her to try to make sure she’s not in over her head, to try to make sure they don’t hurt her.”
If there was one thing that spoke to Gigi, one thing she recognized and understood and connected to in a way that cut straight to her core, it was people who loved hard. The loyal ones. The ones who could believe when there was every reason not to.
“Right now,” Slate told her flatly, “all I’m planning to do is have another shot of bourbon and wait for Eve’s father to find me. I read him in on what she was up to yesterday, just in case.” Slate shook his head slightly. “Toby’s going to kill me for going along with any of this.”
“Not on my watch,” Gigi declared, and then she cast a hopeful look at Knox. “Ourwatch.”
“Hell no,” Knox muttered.
“Hell yes,” Gigi replied, because Slate might not have a planyet, but what Gigi heard loud and clear from him was:I need your help.
What she heard was:You’re already strong.
And Gigi was. She was strong and capable, and she didn’t need her sister’s permission to do what was right. Slate needed Gigi’s help. And the last thing Gigi was going to do—the very last thing—was run away like a little girl.
Okay, Mimosas, she thought, taking Slate’s hand once more in hers, buoyed and resolved.Let’s play a game.
Chapter 45
LYRA
Lyra woke up to find Grayson already sitting up in bed. At least he’d slept. She’d made sure of it. She’d stayed awake the night before until he was out, listening as his breathing slowed, her head on his chest. Lyra hadfeltit the minute his body had finally given in. That had been at three in the morning, but still, Grayson had gotten at least a few hours of sleep, assuming he hadn’t been sitting up in bed, staring down at the massive ring of keys in his lap, since dawn.
Thekeys.
Grayson had fetched them right after they’d talked to Nan and right before they’d caught the others up on what the old woman had said. In retrospect, the solution to the false patent puzzle—and its meaning—had been elegant and startlingly clear.
The Gilded Blade take away Alice, March 5, 1967.
Decades before Grayson’s grandmother had faked her own death and become the Watcher, she’d already had a run-in with the Gilded Blade. Alice had disappeared. Alice had returned, and when she had, a young Tobias Hawthorne had taken her back and told her that he didn’t needto know her secrets. He’d given her a box in which to lock away those secrets.
