Page 51 of The Grandest Game
“A riddle.” Knox’s voice was terse—terserthan usual, even. “Obviously, we’re supposed to solve it.”
“And then make the call,” Gigi added cheerfully, “per our rhyming instructions and also that giant phone booth.”
Brady considered the sword he’d claimed in the prior room, then looked up to the mirrored ceiling overhead. “Small space,” he commented, his voice echoing off the metal walls, his gaze flicking toward Knox.
A muscle in Knox’s jaw ticked. “Summer comes before fall.”
“So does pride,” Brady replied. “Give or take an article adjective.”
Gigi read between the lines of that loaded exchange.In the riddle, fall could refer to the season or a descent. And Knox really doesn’t like small spaces.
He also still didn’t particularly like her. Yet.
“Okay, so summer and pride come before the fall,” Gigi summarized. She looked to the next line of the riddle. “And after the center, you have what? The edge? The end? A lily and a rose are both flowers.” She paused. “Summer flowers?”
“A rose is,” Knox said, his voice tight. “Lilies bloom in spring.”
Brady shifted his gaze from the curved wall to Knox. “So you do remember.”
It took Gigi a moment of extremely tense silence to realize: acallawas a kind of lily.
“Shadowsuggests the blocking of sun.” Knox kept his focus pointedly on the riddle. Every muscle in his neck looked tight. “An eclipse? Andcenter… the equator?”
Brady said nothing. Gigi was a babbler by nature, not at all prone to shutting up, but some moments called for giving people space—metaphorically, in this case. She stayed silent as she looped back to the beginning of the riddle.I come before fall…
Falling.Gigi’s mind generated scattershot possibilities.Gravity. Humpty Dumpty. All the king’s horses.Her gaze jumped to the fourth line of the poem:In front of a horse…
“Putting the cart before the horse?” Gigi hadn’t meant to say that out loud. “Sorry.”
Brady shifted his weight slightly. “Don’t be.”
Gigi thought back to the way he’d touched her stomach—and then she thought about something that Brady had said to Knox:The difference is that I loved her.
He’d used the past tense, but the feelings audible in his voice had clearly been anything but. Bradystillloved Calla, whoever she was. And as soft a spot as Gigi had fortragicand as much as she didn’t shy away from even the worst ideas, she also wanted to win the Grandest Game. She wanted to prove herself. She wanted toflyagain.
So she closed her eyes, banished the memory of Brady’s touch to the ether, and took a deep breath.I am one with this metal chamber and its mirrored ceiling and whoosh-whooshing wall.She forced herself to forget about Brady. And Knox. And Brady-and-Knox. And Calla, who was missing or dead or missing-and-dead.
I come before fall.Gigi took another steadying breath.After the center and not bad at all. In front of a horse named Lily or Rose. Or coolness in shadow. I’m all of those…
Chapter 39
ROHAN
Rohan sometimes thought of his mind as a labyrinth and himself as the creature who lived at the center. Down the different paths, there were, among other things, repositories where he kept information. There was one for details that seemed insignificant but that he committed to memory nonetheless; another for obvious leverage, waiting only for a use; and a third for information that Rohan had flagged as significant but whose significance had yet to be revealed.
It was this last corridor that Rohan found himself visiting most often. Seeing the pattern beneath the surface, sensing the hidden, making connections—that was his lifeblood. And Savannah Grayson had just given him something to work with: Sheneededthis.
That was what Rohan had heard in her voice:needon par with his own to claim the Devil’s Mercy. And that made Savannah a riddle every bit as much as the words now staring back at them from a fresh layer of metal wall.
Why would an eighteen-year-old with a multi-million-dollar trust fundneedto win the Grandest Game?
“Eighty-eight locks.”Savannah read the words on the wall aloud.“Wait, that’s not right. At least the answer is black and white.”
“This is a game of riddles now.” Rohan passed the sword from his right hand to his left.The riddle on the wall. And you.“Riddles deliberately lead you down paths that take you further and further from the right answer. They lie with the truth and rely on the tendency of the human mind to seek confirmation of that which we already believe.”
What is your Mercy, Savvy? What drives you?
“There’s a twist,” Savannah summarized curtly.
