Page 66 of Glorious Rivals

“—double-cross your current partner?”Brady Daniels had a deep voice, pleasant enough.

Savannah’s, in contrast, was high and clear, cutting through the air like a diamond-studded blade.“Partneris an overstatement.Rohan knows quite well that our interests only align to a point.”

Rohan smiled.There you are, winter girl.

“And that point is…,” Brady prompted.

“A matter of some internal debate.At this juncture, I could be persuaded of many things, and I have to say, Mr.Daniels, that you strike me as the debate team type.”

“It’s the glasses,” Brady replied.

Rohan wondered if Brady was peering at Savannah through those glasses, but from this angle, he couldn’t see a thing, could only hear them.

“On day one of this competition,” Brady commented mildly, “you told your sister that she couldn’t trust anyone in this game.You warned Gigi that I wasn’t her friend.”

“Was I wrong?”

“You were not.”Brady Daniels left it at that.

Rohan wondered what the scholar’s read on Savannah Grayson was.Obviously, he’d be suspicious of her, but did he have any idea what she was truly capable of?

Rohan hadn’t—at first.Make your move, Savvy, he thought.Any time now, love.

“Gigi didn’t know on day one that you were playing this game for Calla.”Savannah gave that name its due.“Who was she to you?”

“Someone I knew,” Brady replied quietly, “once upon a time.”

“Are you a fan of fairy tales, Mr.Daniels?”

“A few of them.”Brady Daniels paused in a way that made Rohan think he was studying Savannah like a handwritten letter or a broken clay pot or a piece of priceless art.“Les Fées, for example.”

“The Fairies,” Savannah translated.

“You speak French.”

“Was that a question?”Savannah said archly.

“It was not.Les Féesis a tale sometimes known asDiamonds and Toads.Are you familiar with the story, Savannah?”

“Pretend,” Savannah replied, “that I am not.”

She didn’t have it in her to admit tonotknowing something, and if shedidknow—well, there were benefits to getting an opponent talking.I see you, winter girl.

“It’s a story of two sisters,” Brady said.“One kind, one unkind.”

Rather brutal.Rohan hadn’t thought the scholar had it in him.

“Do go on,” Savannah said.

“The younger sister—the kind one—offers a poor old woman a drink, and in return, the kind sister is given a magical blessing.Every time she speaks, diamonds and jewels fall from her lips like drops of rain from the sky.”

“I take it the older, unkind sister is likewise tested, fails, and gets a curse and toads?”Savannah cut straight to the chase.She was the first-born twin, the older sister to a little sister who wasvery kind.

“Toads,” Brady confirmed.“And snakes.”

“And it’s assumed, of course,” Savannah said, “that it’s better to be a girl who spits diamonds than snakes.”

Rohan could picture her, shaking her head in a way that would have set her braid singing, back when her platinum blond hair came down to her waist.