Page 88 of Glorious Rivals

How

To shoot your shot.

And there it was on the final line—to.Spoken aloud, the same syllable repeated itself four times over the course of the riddle:two,too,too,to.

Lyra pushed her pace up, and Grayson did the same.The wind was fierce today, the kind of wind that came at Lyra from all sides, a little chaotic, impossible to ignore.Her face was starting to feel chapped, and her body ached, a reminder that they’d stayed up all night, a reminder that sooner or later, she would hit a wall.

Beside her, Grayson gave every impression of being someone who didn’t even know what a wall was.“Four twos,” he pointed out, “is eight.”

“The dice?”Lyra let that thought take hold in her mind.

“Maybe.Maybe not.”Grayson was a rhythmic runner, each stride exactly the length of his last.“It matters that we still haven’t fully solved the prior puzzle.”

“No ledger,” Lyra said, verbalizing her earlier thoughts.“We missed something.”She let the ache in her muscles crystallize her focus.“You might even say we’re missing the forest for the trees.”

When they rounded back and the tree line came into view oncemore, Grayson skirted it, looping to the south.Lyra followed his lead and started back at the beginning of their clue.

Often

Never

Little late

“Time,” she said out loud.“That’s the pattern in the first three lines.”

“Often.Never.Little late.”Grayson got there in an instant.“Timecould signify a clock.An hourglass.”

“Our watches?”Lyra suggested, then she preempted his reply.“That’s a stretch.”Up ahead of them, light hit two giant stones at the edge of the forestjust so.“Do you see that?”Lyra asked Grayson.

They passed the first boulder and slowed to a stop, taking in the space between the two boulders—and what lay beyond.

“A staircase made of stone,” Lyra said, and then she shook her head.“How did I miss this?I ran the entire island multiple times.I should have seen it.”

“There’s a difference between seeing and perceiving,” Grayson said.“Our minds have a tendency to fill in gaps.Sometimes, we see things that aren’t there, and sometimes, you can look right at something and miss it all the same.”

As Lyra looked down the stone staircase, she was hit with an ominous feeling—not the feeling of being watched this time, but it came over her body with the same visceral certainty, like her body was perceiving something that her mind could not see.Driven to pinpoint what, she descended first one step on the stone staircase, then the next.She closed her eyes with the third.Grayson followed in her wake.

His body.Hers.Step by step.

With her eyes closed, Lyra felt the connection between them that much more strongly, but that did nothing to banish that nagging sense that there wassomething—

“Stop.”Grayson’s voice cut through the air like a scythe.

Lyra’s eyes flew open, and she froze just in time to see the snake.

Chapter 64

GRAYSON

Don’t move.”Grayson placed a hand on the back of Lyra’s neck.The snake was within striking distance of her.Its head was triangular—and raised.If Grayson had thought he could take care of the threat with no risk to Lyra, he would have.But any movement toward the serpent, no matter how decisive or smooth, could precipitate a strike.

Even Hawthornes could only move so fast.

So Grayson stood therewithLyra, willing her to stay still.And with each breath they took together, Grayson saw the faces of the ones he’d failed before:

The first girl he’d ever cared for, face-down on the shore.Dead.

Avery, bleeding and unconscious on the pavement.The world on fire.In the moments after his father’s bomb had gone off, Grayson hadn’t even been able to run to her.