CHAPTER 26 LYRA

Chapter 26

LYRA

I nside the chest was a collection of six objects:

A Styrofoam cup from Sonic.

A box of magnet poetry.

A roll of quarters.

A mirrored dinner plate.

A black velvet pouch of Scrabble tiles.

A single red rose petal.

And that was it. No further instructions. Not even the barest hint of a suggestion about what they were supposed to do with those items.

"My grandfather was fond of games and fonder of giving his grandsons ways to test and prove ourselves." Grayson's voice was neither quiet nor loud. He put no particular emphasis on the words, but there was an intensity to him that could not be ignored. "Every Saturday morning, the old man would call us into his study and lay out an assortment of objects, just like this one. We were given, at best, minimal instructions or a cryptic prompt. Part of the game was figuring out the game. By its end, every single one of the objects would have proved itself necessary at one point or another, their purposes obscured until the exact moment in the game when a part of the grand plan revealed itself. One clue led to another to another, puzzle after puzzle, riddle after riddle, always a competition."

Lyra flashed back to the way Grayson had spoken about his billionaire grandfather on their phone calls. Whatever Tobias Hawthorne did or didn't do, it's none of my concern. That had been on their first call. On their second: Probabilities being what they are, whatever Tobias Hawthorne did or did not do, it likely ruined your father financially.

And later, after she'd recited her father's cryptic last words— What begins a bet? Not that —Grayson had interpreted those words as a riddle and parted with one final piece of almost humanizing information: My grandfather was very big into riddles.

For a brief moment in time, she'd let herself entertain the idea that they might solve that riddle together.

Lyra slammed a door on the memories. "We've got the cryptic prompt," she said evenly. " To solve the first puzzle, insert your answers here. And no, we're not going to tell you the question. Those were Jameson's exact words. There are three cursors, which suggests the answer has three parts."

Three answers, no question. Just the objects and the room we're locked in. Lyra took a moment to survey the Great Room: the wall of windows facing the fairy-lit rocks and the black ocean beyond; the mazelike design of the cherrywood walls; a granite fireplace; the adjacent seating area where an enormous leather couch was framed by two smaller but otherwise identical pieces. Three-seater, two-seater, one-seater. The asymmetry of that arrangement should have felt unbalanced but didn't. The only other furniture in the room was a pair of marble coffee tables, one of which was covered in the remains of the hourglass. Shards.

A crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling.

"Among the objects we have just been given, there will be one that starts us off." Grayson was all business. "One object is the initial clue that will point us to the next step of the puzzle. The trick is identifying which object that is and decoding its meaning."

"You sound pretty sure about that," Lyra said, halfway under her breath.

"Ask me how often I won my grandfather's games," Grayson suggested silkily.

Lyra did not. Instead, she lined their objects up on the floor, letting her mind linger briefly on each one as she did. A Styrofoam cup. A box of magnet poetry. A roll of quarters. A mirrored dinner plate. A black velvet pouch of Scrabble tiles. A single petal from a red rose.

"Six objects," Lyra said out loud.

"Eight." The correction came from Odette. "The bag and the box." The old woman sank to the floor beside the objects with surprising ease. She poured the Scrabble tiles out of the velvet bag and dumped the poetry magnets out of the box. "I have an eye for technicalities and loopholes. Indulge me."

"Eight objects," Lyra said, coming to kneel next to Odette.

Grayson reached forward and unwrapped the roll of quarters, setting the paper to one side and the coins to the other. "Nine—and that's assuming the coins, the magnets, and the Scrabble tiles all function as units."

Nine objects , Lyra thought. A piece of paper. A small box. A black velvet pouch. Quarters. Scrabble tiles. Poetry magnets. A mirrored plate. A disposable cup. A single petal from a red rose.

Lyra reached for the poetry magnets. Grayson did the same. Her fingers brushed the back of his hand, and Lyra's body was taken back—to the cliffs, to their dance. There were downsides to having the kind of memory where you saw nothing in your mind's eye and felt everything .

Lyra jerked her hand back. She turned her attention to the Scrabble tiles. He could have the damn poetry.

"By my count, there are twenty-two Scrabble tiles," Grayson said brusquely. "Unless there are fewer than five vowels total, you'll want to start by finding a way to eliminate some of the letters. Look for patterns, repetition, anything that will let you get it down to a smaller pool, otherwise the number of possible combinations will render the tiles virtually useless to us on the puzzle front—until or unless we uncover a clue that sheds light on which ones to use."

"I don't recall her asking you for advice, Mr. Hawthorne," Odette commented austerely, but she was smiling like a cat that had just eaten the proverbial canary.

"You take the Scrabble tiles, then," Lyra told Grayson, clipping the words.

"No." Grayson's gaze settled on hers, like a laser locking on its target. He arched a brow. "Are we going to have a problem here, Lyra?" He said her name the way her father did in the dream: Lie-ra .

"It's Lyra," she corrected. Leer-a.

"Rest assured, Lyra." Grayson's voice was low and smooth. "For the duration of this game, I'll be keeping my hands to myself."