CHAPTER 55 LYRA

Chapter 55

LYRA

G rayson was the one who solved it in the end. "That's not a wheel, and it's not a circle. It's a pie . This whole thing has Xander's name written all over it."

"Pie." It took Lyra a second, and then her brain kicked into gear. "Without the E ." She did the math—literally. " A , pi, r , square. C , two, pi, r . They're equations."

"The area and circumference of a circle," Grayson confirmed. "But for our purposes and doubtlessly Xander's, the important part is the Greek letter pi ."

Greek letter. "The tins." Lyra was already on the move. "Who went through the ones marked pi ?"

"I did." Grayson strode past her. "Here. Forty-two canisters marked pi . None contains anything but film reels."

"What about the years?" Lyra said. "Most of the films in the montage were older. They started black-and-white, then turned to color."

"Pull every tin from the sixties," Odette said curtly. Something about the look on the old woman's face made Lyra entirely certain that Odette knew something that they didn't.

Probably multiple somethings. "Then what?" Lyra probed.

"Watch the films," Odette said coolly. "At least a sample."

"That will eat up time," Grayson noted, but Lyra didn't see that they had any other choice.

The twenty-second pi film they tried was called Changing Crowns . The moment the title slide hit the screen, Odette spoke. "This is the one we're looking for."

" A crown , a scepter, an empty throne ," Grayson quoted instantly.

"There is that," Odette agreed, as she stopped the film and peeled the long, velvet gloves off her hands. "And also: This one is one of mine."

"One of yours?" Lyra said.

Odette gave an elegant little shrug. "The man I married when I was seventeen never made my father a star," she said, an odd glint in her eyes. "I was another story."