Page 23 of Glorious Rivals
GRAYSON
Grayson wondered if this was what it had felt like for Jameson and Avery, solving the old man’s puzzles.A thrum of energy was palpable in the air as he and Lyra stepped foot on the helipad.Strips of light burst to life all along the edges of the concrete.
There, in the center of the helipad, was the landing target.
“The bull’s-eye,” Grayson said.He and Lyra moved toward it in perfect synchrony.At the center of the target, there was a circle roughly the length of Grayson’s arm from shoulder to fingertip.
Bull’s-eye.Grayson knelt to run a hand over its surface, feeling the concrete beneath his palms, pressing at it with his fingers, looking for…
“A latch.”Grayson found it and pried it upward.There was a click.He pulled, and the edge of the bull’s-eye came up just far enough for him to slip his fingers beneath it.Bracing his body with his legs, Grayson tightened his grip on the concrete.
Lyra slid in beside him, placing her hands next to his.“On three?”she said.
Her voice killed him.Shedid.For once in his life, Grayson truly understood what it was like being hungry, wanting answers, wantingeverything.“Three,” he said.
They put their weight into it, and the disk moved, and soon, they’d removed it altogether, uncovering a circular sheet of metal down below.
“Bull’s-eye,” Grayson murmured.The metal was smooth, nothing engraved on or cut into its surface, except at the very center, where there was a slit.
Less than two inches wide but not by much, Grayson noted.No more than two-tenths of an inch high.
Grayson pressed his hand against the metal, feeling around the slit.The closest thing he had to a flashlight was his watch, so he brought his wrist down to the metal, then lowered his head, trying to look through the slit to whatever his brothers and Avery had hidden below.
“No hinges,” Lyra reported, having finished her own assessment.“The metal can’t be lifted up or moved.It’s locked into place.”
Locked.Having played Hawthorne games for as long as he had, Grayson knew exactly what that meant.“We need a key.”
“A key,” Lyra repeated, and then her eyes lit up, electric in a way that Grayson felt to his core.“Grayson.For every lock a key.”
He looked back to the slit in the metal—just large enough for the blade of a sword.
Chapter 20
ROHAN
Rohan smiled in the darkness.Lyra and Grayson may have reached the target on the helipad first, but that meant nothing now.
They need their sword.Rohan kept his voice low.“Stall them, Savvy.”He and Savannah were close enough to have heard every word Grayson and Lyra had just said—and far enough away from the light not to be seen themselves.“I have a sword to retrieve.”
And one to steal, if I can.
“If you’d worn the sword,” Savannah retorted, her voice muted, her gaze on their adversaries, “this wouldn’t be an issue.”
Rohan let his gaze go down, down, down, to the place where he knew her chain rested, hugging her hipbones.In the dark, Rohan could barely make out anything about her body, but he had anexcellentmemory.
“To each their own, love.I don’t believe in weighing myself down.”
Rohan didn’t bother telling herhowto stall the other team.She was Savannah Grayson.She’d figure it out.
Rohan hadn’t hidden the sword inhisroom.He made it back to the fifth floor of the mansion, to the library with its circular shelves, in record time.Rohan had always had a soft spot for libraries.
He’d also always had an unerring sense for knowing when he had company.
“I’m a bit busy at the moment, Mr.Hawthorne.”Rohan didn’t so much as glance back over his shoulder.There was an art to cultivating an air of omniscience.
“And here I had you pegged as the stop-to-smell-the-roses type,” Jameson quipped.
Rohan locked a hand around the mahogany bookshelf at eye level and began to climb.“Ask me if I’ve ever incapacitated a grown man using nothing but a rose.”
