Page 17 of Glorious Rivals
“And then there were four.”Rohan made a show of lifting his champagne flute to his lips once more, seemingly unconcerned with his dart—or anyone else’s.
The darts might not be the clue.Lyra processed that.The promisedfirst cluein the Great Room could be the champagne flutes or the dominoes or the words scrawled across the table.
Rohan lowered his flute and turned his attention wholly and noticeably to Savannah.He looked at her like looks could do more than kill—like looks couldtouch.
“Rohan.”Grayson’s eyes narrowed slightly.“I’d like a word.”
Rohan met Grayson’s gaze and offered up a dauntless, taunt-the-devil smile, and then he set his champagne flute on the table and lifted his right hand to Savannah’s face.
From what Lyra knew of Savannah Grayson, that seemed like a good way to lose a hand, but Savannah allowed it.
Rohan slowly trailed his fingers along Savannah’s jaw and down the lines of her neck.“Ambrosial,” Rohan said.“Sybaritic.Voluptuary.That’s three words for you, Mr.Hawthorne.”
Sensing danger, Lyra felt compelled to return a favor from the night before.She lifted her hand and placed it on the back of Grayson’s neck, silent encouragement for him to refrain from murder.
“I, too, know words,” Grayson told Rohan, his tone contemplative—and chilling.“I’ll allow you to imagine which ones I’m thinking right now.”
“Alas, my imagination is without peer.”Rohan twirled his golden dart through warm brown fingers, then picked his crystal champagne flute back up with the same hand that held the dart and raised it toward Grayson in a silent toast.“And so is your sister.”
The muscles in Grayson’s neck tightened under Lyra’s touch, but his ironclad control held.
Rohan pushed his luck and winked at Grayson, then sauntered out of the room, raking his gaze over the fallen dominoes as he did.Savannah went to follow, and Grayson placed himself directly in his sister’s path.
“Savannah?Do be careful.”
“I could tell you the same,” Savannah replied, “but you’re male, and it’s my understanding that men never have to be careful.Anatomy is fascinating that way, is it not?”
Lyra snorted.In other circumstances, she might have liked Grayson’s sister.
Head held high, Savannah stepped around Grayson and exited the Great Room without ever breaking her stride.
Grayson turned to Lyra.“I assure you, I would have given either of my youngerbrothersthe same warning.”
“Have you always been this overprotective?”Lyra asked.
“I have always been precisely as protective as I need to be.”
Lyra thought about Grayson putting his body between hers and the cliff’s edge—and then she forcibly redirected her thoughts.“The clue might not be the dart.”
Grayson eyed the golden dominoes that littered the Great Room floor, then moved to kneel over one section in particular.“This one’s a Fibonacci spiral.Xander’s work, no doubt.”Grayson studied the spiral for a moment, then held up his dart.“Butthishas Jameson’s name written all over it.”
Jameson was the brother with whom Grayson had disappeared at the bonfire.“How so?”Lyra asked, as she came to stand over Grayson and the spiraling domino pattern on the floor.
“Jameson is… competitive.Intensely and frequently reckless.Fearless to a fault.Our mother always referred to him ashungry.”There was an undertone to Grayson’s voice that Lyra couldn’t quite pin down.“Jamie’s specialty has always been wanting things with an intensity that puts the sun to shame—every win, every answer, every rush.”
And you never let yourself want anything at all.Lyra crouched beside Grayson, picking up a golden domino and turning it over in her hand to reveal its face: five dots to one side of the line down the center and three on the other.Lyra flipped another domino and found the same combination.Five and three.
Lyra reached for her jacket pocket—and her glass dice.She rolled them and then looked meaningfully at Grayson.“Five and three.”
Grayson produced his own pair of dice, red to her white, and rolled them.“Six and two.”He turned over a domino to reveal the same combination of numbers.
Five and three.Six and two.“What does it mean?”Lyra asked, thinking out loud.“The fact that the numbers are the same.”
Grayson stood.“In my grandfather’s games, we called themechoes—details or motifs that repeated themselves from game to game or within games.Some echoes meant nothing.Some were the lynchpin, the single most significant thing in an entire puzzle sequence.You never know what kind of echo you’re dealing with—until you know.”Grayson glanced toward the Great Room door.“Shall we remove ourselves to somewhere with a bit more privacy?”
To work the puzzle, Lyra told herself.And that is all.She gatheredher dice, her other hand holding the champagne flute from which she’d yet to take a single sip.“Where to?”
“My room.”Grayson pocketed his own dice, plucked his champagne flute off the table, and made his way to the edge of the Great Room and around to a place on the wall where they’d discovered a hidden door the day before.From the same pocket into which his dice had just disappeared, Grayson produced a bronze room key seemingly identical to Lyra’s own.He held his key flat against the wall, and the hidden door swung open, revealing the darkened staircase beyond.
