—William Blake, 1789
Chapter 50
LYRA
LYRA, MY LYRA.
In Lyra’s mind, those three words had been playing on repeat for hours as she and Grayson had continued their search for Alice’s box, as they’d gone through years and years of renovation blueprints in an attempt to reverse-engineer Hawthorne House and the surrounding estate as they had existed at the time of Alice’s false death.
The embroidered inscription had plagued Lyra as she and Grayson had hiked out to Wayback Cottage, the very first building that Tobias Hawthorne had erected on the estate, the first home he and Alice had ever shared. The words had cycled through Lyra’s mind as she and Grayson had searched the cottage and the surrounding area, as they’d spoken to Oren, who told them Zara suggested searching a specific room at Hawthorne House, a specific suite.
By the time Lyra and Grayson made it back to the House, Lyra couldn’t keep the floodgates in place any longer.
LYRA, MY LYRA.
Lie-ra.
Lie-ra.
She will come for you.
Lyra breathed through the onslaught as she and Grayson stepped into a room of shining gold.
“This,” Grayson said, “was my mother’s wing. I never knew it belonged to Alice first.”
The moldings on the walls were gold and so were the walls themselves. Not merelygoldas in the color but what Lyra deeply suspected wasactualgold leaf. An exquisite crystal chandelier marked the ceiling, sized more for a great hall. The room looked like something out of Versailles, and the attached closet was far larger than Toby’s home. The bathroom was almost as big. A massive claw-footed tub sat elevated on a marble dais.
“Do you think your mother redecorated?” Lyra asked. “Or—”
“It took her a week.”
Lyra turned. She hadn’t heard anyone approach, but there Grayson’s aunt Zara was, standing in the main room, a single key of Tobias Hawthorne’s in her hand. Even from a distance, Lyra could make out the jewel at the center of that key: a ruby.
It was only when Lyra and Grayson got closer to Zara that Lyra realized the ruby was shaped like an apple.
“Skye claimed this suite as her own less than an hour after our mother’s funeral,” Zara said calmly. “Had I realized that funeral was a farce, I might not have taken such exception to my sister’s behavior—not that it mattered one way or another what I thought. Skye always did have a way of taking what she wanted.”
“She certainly does,” Grayson replied.
“This room was a sitting room once,” Zara told him. “Every grand ball my mother ever planned, she planned here. That closet was full of gowns, each more beautiful than the last.”
Lyra tried to wrap her mind around that. She didn’t exactly associateA Hawthornewith parties.
“You’ve made progress on the keys.” Grayson nodded to the key in his aunt’s hand.
“Some,” Zara said. “This one tells the story of the day Mother andFather met. There was an apple tree involved. A rejection on her part, persistence on his… one bite of the apple at a time.”
“There was also a wager,” Grayson said quietly. “And an arrow, if I’m remembering the story correctly. It was one of the only ones the old man ever told us about Alice.”
Zara raised her chin slightly. “My mother was an impeccable shot.”
An impeccable shot. With a bow and arrow.Lyra’s mind went to a photograph she’d seen during the Grandest Game. “Calla Thorp was an archer,” she noted.
Grayson considered that, then shot an assessing look at his aunt. “You didn’t track us down to talk to us about the way Alice and the old man met.”
“I came to find you,” Zara told Grayson, “to kindly advise you to find your brother, the one a certain lawyer has a habit of going to first when there is news.”
News.Lyra thought about the sketch she’d given to Alisa—and the fact that they were still waiting for someone to track down Odette.
