Page 45 of Glorious Rivals

Some time later, Rohan stepped into the Great Room.No dominoes.The gleaming wood floor was very nearly bare.Rohan noted a violin and a bow, both leaned neatly against the wall, but Savannah ignored them as she strode to the black granite fireplace.A fire now burned inside it—the first time it had been lit, as far as Rohan knew, since the start of the game.

“Is there a switch?”Rohan asked.“Or was it remotely triggered?”

Savannah didn’t bother answering that.“I tried warming the music box first, to no avail.Same for the bracelet, the charms, the dice, and the lock on my chain.”

“And then…” Rohan strode to stand beside her, in front of the crackling flames.“You tried Brady’s photographs.”

“Did I?”Savannah replied.

Yes.

As Rohan watched, Savannah held one of the photographs ofCalla Thorp—the worn one, the one that Rohan suspected Brady had carried with him for years—up to the fire.As the paper warmed, letters began to appear on the back, a message in feminine script.

Do exactly as I say.

“It strikes me,” Rohan murmured, “that there is more than one kind of sponsor.”

Brady Daniels had been invited to this game by the Hawthorne heiress herself.That meant that any would-be sponsors would have had very little time to approach him and make their case.In the previous year’s game, resources had mattered.Sponsors had something to offer.But this year?

This year, external resources had only been a boon in the initial hunt for wild card tickets.Given that Bradywasn’ta wild card, his sponsor had to have played this a different way.

“And the other photograph?”Rohan prompted.

Savannah held the other, less-worn picture up to the flames.Letter by letter, a second message appeared.

The game must go on.Ensure that it does.

Before Rohan could mull that over, his watch buzzed.

“Midnight,” Savannah said beside him.

A message appeared on their watches from the game makers.

“Don your tux and your mask…,” Rohan read aloud.

Savannah looked up from her own watch and finished the sentence.“Be on the dock at quarter past.”

Chapter 35

ROHAN

In Rohan’s room, a new wall had parted, revealing a closet bearing armor of a very different kind.Formal wear.Rohan let his fingers skim over the tuxedo jackets the way another person might have lightly dragged their hand through the surface of a pool or lake.He stopped when his hand hit fabric the same dark purple color as the velvet that had lined the music boxes.

For Rohan, the shade was a familiar one, calling to mind a special ink.

Ink.Rohan could feel the memory rising, like water around his ankles, then his knees, then his thighs.Dark purple ink and a book and a quill.This time, he did fight—and lost.The memory took him under anyway, wholly, completely, body and soul.

“Sharp, isn’t it?”

Rohan is five years old, and the man across from him is a stranger—a stranger who holds a metal feather out to Rohan.

“The edges will cut you—if you let them.”The man smiles.“Butyou won’t, will you, Rohan?”The man’s smile deepens but doesn’t reach his eyes.“Let them hurt you?”

Rohan might be small, but he understands that the man in front of him isn’t really talking about the metal-sharp edges of that feather.He’s talking about people.

People will hurt you, if you let them.

Rohan says nothing, staring angrily and defiantly back at the man, and then he turns to stare just as hard at the book the man has placed before him.The book is big.It is old.It is, Rohan knows instinctually, the reason for the metal feather and the small, silver bowl of dark purple liquid that reminds Rohan of blood in the night.