Page 39 of The Grandest Game
She justlovedbeing tested. “Is this the part where you tell us about the other two quarters, or do we have to earn that information, your highness?”
“I’m feeling magnanimous.” Grayson’s lips twitched slightly.Veryslightly. “One of the remaining two quarters was minted in twenty-twenty, the other in two thousand and two.”
“Same digits in both numbers,” Lyra noted. “Just rearranged.”
“And nineteen ninety-one,” Grayson replied, one-upping her, “is a palindrome.”
The part of Lyra’s brain that loved a good code latched on to the pattern, as that same damn strand of blond hair fell into Grayson’s face a second time. He brushed it back.
“And the years on the quarters matter why?” Lyra said tartly.
“In a Hawthorne game, everything matters. The question is notwhybutwhen.” Grayson looked at Lyra like the answer to that question might be buried somewhere behind her eyes. “Assume for the moment that the wordsadageandcrownare indeed the clue that is meant to start us off.” Grayson turned and stalked toward the fireplace on the far side of the room. “In that case, the pattern to the quarters will matter later, and what matters now…” He laid a hand flat on the black granite of the fireplace. “… is finding a crown.”
Lyra watched as Grayson ran his hands over the granite, left to right, then down, his movements automatic, like systematically feeling every square inch of a massive fireplace was something he’d done ten thousand times before.
“Why a crown?” Lyra pressed. “Why not something heavy?Heavy is the head that wears the crown.”
“Heavyis vague, and vagueness makes for imprecise puzzles.” Grayson Hawthorne saidimpreciselike it was a fighting word.
Lyra looked to Odette, who’d been suspiciously quiet, and found the old woman tracing a finger through the mazelike path on the wood-paneled walls. Rather than join her, Lyra turned her attention to the heaviest pieces of furniture in the room.
Imprecise, my ass.The coffee tables were made of what looked like solid white marble. Tiny hairline cracks marked the surface of the stone, each crack inlaid with gold.
“Like a crown,” Lyra murmured, running her own hand over the first table, aware on some level that she’d adopted Grayson’s exact pattern of movement as she searched. Within a minute, she’d turned her attention to the second table, the one covered in shards of glass.
“All things being equal, Ms. Kane, I would prefer you did not shred your hands to ribbons this evening.” Grayson’s tone took Lyra right back to the cliffs, to his hand on her arm.
“I have twenty-twenty vision and an above-average amount of common sense.” Lyra plucked a shard off the table. “I can handle a little glass.”
Grayson’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “The number of scars my brothers have collectively obtained directly after uttering the statementI can handle a little glassmeans you will have to forgive my skepticism.”
I don’t have to forgive anything, Lyra thought. Out loud, she opted for a different message. “You don’t need to worry about me, Hawthorne boy.”
“I don’t worry. I calculate probabilistic risk.”
“As entertaining as it would be to let the two of you bicker,” Odette interjected, “at my age, you only have so much time left, so I suggest the pair of you ask me what I found.”
Lyra set down the shard of glass. “What did you find?”
“Nothing yet,” Odette said, playing the contrarian. “But in the decades I spent cleaning other people’s houses to scrape by, I learned how to read them—the peopleandthe houses.” The old woman pressed her palm to the wood. “There’s a compartment hiddenhere.” She slid down the wall four feet and rapped it with her fist. “And something larger overhere.”
“That hardly sounds likenothing,” Grayson told her wryly.
“Until we figure out how to trigger the compartments, it is precisely nothing,” Odette replied. She edged farther down. “This, on the other hand…”
Lyra joined the old woman at the wall.
“Look at the grain of the wood,” Odette murmured. “See the shift? There’s no visible seam—the work isthatgood—but feel the wood.”
Lyra brought her fingers up and explored the area that Odette had indicated. The wood gave. Not much. Barely enough to notice.
Suddenly, Grayson’s fingers were right next to hers. True to his vow, he didn’t allow their hands to so much as brush as he pressed on the wood.Hard.An entire section of the wall depressed.
Somewhere, gears audibly turned, and the chandelier began to descend from the ceiling. It sank inch by inch, crystals vibrating with the movement, clinking against one another in a fragile melody that had Lyra holding her breath.
When the chandelier stopped moving, it was still well out of reach.
Odette gestured imperiously at Grayson. “Well? Don’t just stand there, Mr. Hawthorne.” The old woman extended her gesture to encompass Lyra. “You’re going to have to lift her up.”
