Page 88 of The Grandest Game
“Yes, well, doubt has never been my strong suit.” Grayson’s gaze cheated toward Lyra’s. “But if thisisa more typical Hawthorne puzzle than the first was, we’ll want to think of unconventional uses for each object.” He nodded to the lollipop. “Take that.”
The face of the lollipop was flat, circular, and larger in diameter than Lyra’s fist. The stick was long and sturdy.
“There could be a code built into the swirling of the candy,” Grayson continued, “something that identifies a specific portion of the mosaic. Or perhaps we’re meant to discard the lollipop and use only the plastic wrapping that covers it.”
Lyra moved to stand a little farther from him, directly over the objects, keenly aware of the way she moved and the way he watched her.
She knelt to eye the wrapping on the lollipop. “The nutritional info—”
“—could contain a hidden message or code,” Grayson finished. He knelt beside her. “Or perhaps the lollipop’s stick is the important part, and, at some juncture, we’ll find ourselves faced with a button that needs pressing and a gap too small for our fingers to fit through.”
“And these?” Lyra gestured broadly to the remaining three objects.
The light switch consisted of a panel, two screws, and a switch, all attached to a metal block with more screws. The entire thing looked like it had been plucked straight from a wall.
The sticky notes were standard size and square, the color shifting the farther down the pad you went, starting with purple and ending in red—a reverse rainbow.
“How many uses could there possibly be for sticky notes?” Lyra said.
“You’d be surprised.” A person could have written a book about all the ways that Grayson Hawthorne could almost-but-not-quite smile.
“Do any of them involve a cello case, a longsword, a crossbow, and a calico kitten?” Lyra asked dryly.
Graysonactuallysmiled then, and Lyra wished that he hadn’t. She really, really wished that he hadn’t.
“What can I say?” Grayson told her. “I had an unconventional childhood.”
A Hawthorne childhood,Lyra reminded herself. Even setting aside everything else—blood, death, omega; a Hawthorne did this; stop calling—the simple truth of it was that Lyra and Grayson Hawthorne were from two different worlds.
She fixed her gaze on the final object. The paintbrush looked like something from a children’s watercolor set. The handle was green, the bristles black. Grayson reached forward and tested the handle, trying to unscrew it to no effect.
“We could try brushing it over the paper,” Lyra said, her focus damn near close to legendary. “Or the walls.”
“A worthwhile pursuit,” Grayson told her. “Right after we flip that switch.”
Lyra flipped it. Nothing happened. She tried the brush on the paper, then staunchly started in on the walls. Grayson fell in beside her. Behind them, Lyra heard Odette pick up one of their objects.
Probably examining it with her opera glasses.Lyra didn’t turn around. She just kept at it with the brush, unable to keep her eyes from going to Grayson’s hands.
His fingers were long and dexterous, his knuckles pronounced. The skin of his hands was smooth, the muscles leading to his wrists defined. There was a single scar, a subtle crescent moon beneath the nail bed on his right thumb.
Lyra focused on the brush and the wall. “I had a very conventionalchildhood.” She stared at the mosaic so hard her vision blurred. “Ballet. Soccer. Running in the woods, splashing in the creek.” Lyra pressed her lips together. “That’s why I’m here.”
Was she reminding herself or telling him?
“Because of yourconventionalchildhood?” Grayson tapped the index and middle fingers on his right hand against a section of deep blue tiles well within his reach and almost out of hers.
Lyra rose to her toes, swiping the paintbrush over the tiles he’d indicated.Nothing.“My dad—my actual dad, who raised me—he owns land,” Lyra said. “And a house.Mile’s End.” She closed her eyes, just for a moment. “It’s like no place else on earth, and he might have to sell.”
“You’re doing this for your family,” Grayson said—not a question.
Lyra tightened her grip over the handle of the brush. “We’re getting nowhere.”
“Lyra.”
She thought at first, just from his tone, that Grayson had seen something in the mosaic, but when Lyra turned her head toward him, she realized that he wasn’t looking at themosaic.
“I was wrong.” Grayson sounded as sure of that as he did of absolutely everything else.
