Page 37 of The Grandest Game
The center of the table spun. It made a complete rotation before Rohan caught Savannah’s wrist, his touch feather-light. “Careful, love. What if it turns out we’re meant to enter some sort of combination using that ‘compass’?”
Savannah turned her head slowly toward him, her eyes even with his, herlipseven with his. “Do you intend to keep that appendage?”
“My apologies.” In one liquid movement, Rohan left her and crossed to the curtains on the front wall. Pulling the first set revealed no windows, just a painting on the wall where a window should have been.
“A mural.” Savannah crossed the room and pulled the second set of curtains. “And another one here.”
One of sunrise, one of sunset.Rohan pushed on, the rest of the world melting away as he executed a visual search of the room, scanning every inch of it, looking for—
That.Rohan’s gaze landed on the bar cart between the windows. Sitting on top of it were three crystal decanters, each holding liquid of a different color. But Rohan had eyes only for the fourth bottle. It was the simplest, boxy in shape, made of plain glass. The liquid inside was a very distinct shade.
Sunrise orange.Rohan reached for it, and this time, Savannah caughthiswrist.
“I assume that you are also attached to your appendages,” Rohan quipped. Her thumb was on his pulse. He could feel her feel it.
The body never lies.
Savannah dropped her grip, allowing Rohan to lift the bottle in front of his face. The colored liquid served as a lens, filtering outlight waves of the same frequency—and illuminating the writing hidden in the sunrise mural.
Rohan smiled—not a roguish smile but one that was sharp-edged, wolfish. Hisrealsmile.
He handed Savannah the bottle, and she read the hidden message for herself.
TO SOLVE THE PUZZLE, FOCUS ON THE WORDS.
Chapter 29
ROHAN
Rohan dumped the magnet poetry onto the table. Savannah took up position to his right. Without even a glance in his direction, she began laying the words out face up, efficient and precise, each word a half inch from the next. By the time Savannah had the entire magnet poetry kit laid out in three evenly spaced lines, Rohan had already finished his preliminary assessment of the set.
“Twenty-five words total,” he commented.
“Only four verbs.” Savannah’s pale hair was braided back from her face in a complicated twist that reminded Rohan of a tiara, but there was nothing princess-like about the way she assessed the spread before them, her palms flat on the table, sinewy muscles visible in her arms. She looked like a general preparing for battle. “Burned,is,will, andbe.”
Rohan pulled three of the four, rearranging their order.
“It seems a poor strategy to use all of the verbs in one go,” Savannah said intently.
“Are you suggesting we ration our verbs?” Rohan smirked.
She ignored him, scanned the word bank, and pulled three others. “These are the only ones that could even possibly go with your little combination there.”
There was no hesitation in Savannah Grayson. It was like she was incapable of it.
She’d pulled the wordtheand two nouns. “Skin.” Rohan allowed himself to linger on that word for a moment. There were benefits to letting yourself want someone if strategy called for making them want you. “Androse.” Rohan drew a finger across the remaining word, then slid it and the wordtheinto place.
“The rose petal.” Savannah was already on the move.
Rohan was beside her in a flash. “Up for a little bonfire, winter girl?” The title suited her.The hair. The eyes.Though Rohan had to admit: She was far morewomanthangirl.
“Burning anything would be premature and rash.” Savannah looked back to the bank of magnetic words. Rohan wondered which ones jumped out to her.Danger? Cruel? Fast? Touch? Fair?“And besides,” she continued crisply, “to burn anything, we’d need matches or a lighter, which we do not have.”
“Matches, a lighter, or…” Rohan waited until her eyes flicked toward his. “A beam of light and a concave mirror.”
Chapter 30
LYRA
