Page 95 of Glorious Rivals
ONLY AT NIGHT
“Right place,” Lyra said, “wrong time.We can only move on—only find the ledger and the next clue—at night.”She looked from Grayson to the bed between them, a beautiful antique setup in a damp and shallow cavern that would probably be overrun with water as soon as the tide rose.“Hence the bed.”
Night.Bed.
“We’re all running on fumes,” Grayson commented.“And thus, the game includes a programmed break.”
Lyra’s brain raced.“After a night on that yacht—”
“That ensured that all players encountered the tree during the day,” Grayson finished.
We were on the music box.Brady was one puzzle ahead—the compass.He must not have solved it before midnight.
“The tide will come in again.”Grayson rested a hand on the wrought-iron headboard.“Thisbed is just for show.”
“But we do need to sleep,” Lyra said, looking at the bed, drawn to it—and to him.She tilted her eyes up to catch his.“We need sleep, and we need food.”
They were only human.
“We need,” Grayson said, his voice echoing through the cavern, “to go back to the house.”
Back at the house, they found food and ate their fill.
“And now,” Grayson said, “we sleep.”
Lyra gave him a look.“You say that like it’s such a simple thing.”
“Control of your body.Control of your mind.”Grayson returned Lyra’s look.He paused, ever so slightly.“Sleepshouldbe a simple thing.”
But it isn’t for you, either.Lyra understood that, despite his words.She thought of that moment with the snake and the way he’d looked afterward, and then she thought about Savannah and Eve, about Alice and omega and everything else.
“Should be,” Lyra echoed.“But isn’t.”
“I fail most often,” Grayson told her, “at simple things.”
Lyra thought again about Grayson Hawthorne having to practice making mistakes.She thought about the girl he’d lost, the one he blamed himself for.And then she thought about herself: four years old, made a party to her father’s suicide.The only witness.The only survivor.
She wondered if sleep was ever simple for survivors.
“Grayson.”Lyra’s voice came out rough.“Would you like to fail together?”
Chapter 69
LYRA
They ended up in Grayson’s “room”—the ballroom with its mosaic floor and walls and ceiling and a single king-sized bed in the middle.Their longsword lay at the foot of it.Grayson picked it up, peeled back the comforter, and then looked at Lyra.
“You first,” she told him.
Grayson set the sword down on the mosaic floor, and then he rose again and climbed into the bed.A breath catching in her throat, Lyra climbed in beside him.
Grayson propped himself up with one arm and looked down at her.He brought a hand to her temple, to her hair.“May I?”
Lyra wasn’t entirely sure what he was asking, but she nodded anyway, and Grayson began slowly working his fingers through her thick tangle of hair, spreading it out on the pillow around her head.
When he finished, Grayson just stayed there, propped up, staring down at her for the longest time.
“You’re not going to fall asleep like that,” Lyra told him.And neither am I.“Lay back down.”
