Page 59 of Glorious Rivals
The label was no longer blank.
“The infinity symbol,” Savannah said.“Just like her dress.”
Still not saying the heiress’s name, Rohan noted.He wondered if Savannah even truly realized that Avery was not the one she hated most, not really.Graysonwas the one that Savannah had let in.
Family was capable of inflicting wounds the rest of the world could never match.
“Infinity like the dress,” Rohan echoed, “and like one of the symbols on the head of our room keys.”
Rohan reached into his jacket pocket, producing the key in question.It had played a role in the game already, but better safe than sorry.He pushed at the lemniscate on the key’s head—or, viewed differently, the number eight.
Nothing happened.
He tried submersing the key in the hot tub, the way he had the bottle of champagne, and when that, too, yielded no results, he withdrew the key and poured champagne over it.
“Nothing,” Rohan commented—out loud this time.He took another swig from the bottle.“Pity to waste it.”
“Pity.”Savannah poured herself a glass of champagne, and then she joined Rohan at the edge of the hot tub.Kicking off her heels, she sat and pulled her dress up, baring her legs to the knees.Tossing a look at Rohan, she submerged her legs in the hot tub and brought the champagne flute to her mouth.
Rohan caught her wrist, his touch light.“Look.”
Luminescent letters had appeared on the flute, to either side of theHcut into the crystal.AnN, anI, and aGto the left, a loneTto the right.
“Night,” Rohan said.Infinity.Night.“Tricky bastards, aren’t they?”he asked Savannah, ridding himself of shoes and socks, and beginning to roll up the pants on his deep purple tux.“First they drown us in details, obfuscating the actual clue in any given puzzle, and then they give us enough hints to do the same.”
“More than one puzzle.”Savannah’s calm was a thing to behold.“More than one hint.”
“Unless, of course, they’re meant to go together.”Rohan sat and sank his legs into the hot tub, the shock of heat nothing to him.“Infinity.Night.Endless night.”
“Except this night isn’t endless,” Savannah countered.“We only have, what, four or five hours until dawn?”
With each passing minute, the two of them drew closer to the end of the game, to the moment when one person winning would require the utter obliteration of the other.
“We’re losing.”Savannah’s tone made it clear that she could not and would not tolerate that.
“Brady is at least one puzzle ahead of us,” Rohan agreed.“Perhapstwo.For all we know, the hints we’ve uncovered are for his puzzle, not ours.”
Savannah looked at her glass.“How did he pull ahead of us to begin with?”
That question might have been rhetorical, but Rohan recognized the benefit of considering every possible answer to even the most rhetorical of questions.“Based on his performance in last year’s Grandest Game,” he noted, “Brady Daniels particularly excels at puzzles involving symbology, mythology, andmusic.”
Savannah glanced down at the writing on her arm.Rohan raised his hand to justalmosttouch her skin.Taking in the code, he moved his fingers slowly down her arm, never touching her or the ink, but letting her feel the ghost of his touch.
“May I?”Rohan asked.
“If you must,” Savannah said.
Oh, I must, Savvy.Rohan started low on Savannah’s arm this time and worked his way up, letter by letter.His touch light, Rohan weaved his way in and out of the writing, taking in each piece of the puzzle—each music note, beginning with the waltz and ending with “Clair de lune.”
Halfway through, Savannah’s breath hitched.Like that, do you, love?
Three-quarters of the way through, Rohan let himself imagine Savannah Grayson slipping off that dress and slipping fully into the hot tub.
As he saw his task through to the end, he leaned toward her, tilted his head down, and spoke directly into her ear.“D,A,G,A,”he murmured.One section of “Clair de lune.”“E,E,F.”Another.
“Adage.”Savannah’s voice wasn’t nearly as high or clear as her normal speaking tone.“Oraged.Orfade.”
Rohan let his touch linger on the final note.“There’s too many notes across the three songs for this puzzle to be as simple as spelling a word.”
