Page 77 of The Grandest Game
She shimmied down a couple of shelves, then leapt for the floor. Her landing wasn’t exactlygraceful, but Gigi didn’t let that slow her down. Squatting next to the castle, Gigi marked the points of entry she’d seen from above. There was no staircase, no way to get from the bottom stories upward. Activity—as indexed by the dolls—was densest in the courtroom, the feast hall, and the throne room.
Throne.Fireworks detonated in Gigi’s brain. Glorious fireworks!
The king doll was sitting on his throne, but the queen wasn’t on hers.
Twenty minutes later, Gigi found the queenunderone of thebeds in the Victorian mansion. She wasn’t exactly subtle about the way she tossed the place, so by the time she vigorously slammed the queen onto the empty throne, Knox and Brady were both staring at her.
“The poem.” Brady got there first. “From the chamber.An empty throne.You’re brilliant.”
Brilliant.Gigi could get used to that.
“Nothing’s happening,” Knox pointed out.
Gigi turned her attention to the queen’s accessories. The samenothinghappened when she popped the crown off the queen’s head, but when she grasped the tiny scepter between her forefinger and her thumb and tried to pull, she was met with resistance.
The head of the scepter was adragon.
Gigi persevered. When she finally wrenched the scepter free, there was a pop.
“Quiet,” Knox ordered. He lowered himself chest-down to the ground, his palms flat against the floor, his head slightly raised, just inches from the Victorian mansion. “Do that again,” he told Gigi.
“I think it came from over here.” Brady crouched and zeroed in on the room in the Victorian mansion that Gigi had mentally dubbed the parlor. A fancy red sofa sat opposite two blue wingback chairs. A maid pushed a tea cart. Behind her, there was a grandfather clock and a cabinet filled with books.
Gigi returned the queen’s scepter and pulled it again. Another pop. Knox and Brady reached at the exact same time for the cabinet full of books. Knox let his hand drop, allowing Brady to be the one to open the cabinet. Tiny, plastic books spilled out onto the dollhouse floor.
Scrawled onto each of them, there was a number.
Chapter 57
ROHAN
By Rohan’s estimation, they had a little over four hours left until dawn. He and Savannah had been searching for hours, and they’d made no progress.
A Needle In A Haystackwasn’t their clue. It seemed, instead, to be a description of their task. They’d spent far too much time already looking for theirneedle, a clue in a room with seemingly endlesshayto sort through. They’d gone back to the stack of boxes they’d pulled from the shelves, searching for crowns and scepters and thrones. Every applicable piece—including those from A Needle In A Haystack—had been examined.
Thoroughly.
When that had turned up nothing, Rohan and Savannah had extended their search to every other game in the room as well. They’d opened every box in search of the target items. They’d emptied the shelves and searched them, too, looking for buttons or triggers, to no avail.
And, per Rohan’s mental map, this was most certainly not their final room—or puzzle.
“Savannah.” Rohan didn’t shorten her name. “We need to take the hint.”
Savannah placed herself squarely in front of the hint button. “I wouldn’t have pegged you as a person who gave up that easily.”
“I’m a strategist. Some days, that’s all I am: brutal, no-holds-barredstrategy. In my line of work, you have to know when to cut your losses, when to divert.”
“I suppose that’s the difference between us.” Savannah lifted her chin. “I don’t lose, so there are nolossesto cut.”
“I could fight you for it,” Rohan commented.
“Been there,” Savannah replied archly. “Done that.”
It was clear to him from her tone: Part of herwantedto spar, the same way part of him did. But strategy was never subject towant.
He gave her a push of a different sort. “You don’t like asking for help, do you, Savvy?”
“It is less about whether I like it than whether I do it.” She gave him one of those very Savannah Grayson looks, icy and sure. “I do not. People make mistakes. If you rely on others, their mistakes become yours.”
