Page 122 of The Brothers Hawthorne

“Damn it, Jameson!” Nash tried to lunge forward, but the ax came down right next to his foot. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”

He wants to hurt me.Grayson thought about Emily’s body, her hair wet, her eyes vacant. “Let him.” Grayson was surprised at the sound of his own voice. The words felt guttural, but they sounded almost robotic.

Jameson flung the ax down and picked up the machete.

Nash eased forward. “Em’s gone,” he said. “It’s not right. It’s not fair. You want to set something on fire—either of you—I’ll help. But not this. Not like this, Jamie.”

The bridge was decimated now, hanging by threads. Jameson stepped back onto a large platform, then swung. Nash barely had time to jump to the other side.

“Exactly like this,” Jameson said, as the bridge came crashing down. The remaining blades fell roughly to the dirt.

“You’re hurting.” Nash made his way down the tree and over to the other side—to Jameson.

All Grayson could do was watch.

“Hurting? Me?” Jameson replied, going at the tree house walls with the machete.Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.“Nothing hurts unless you let it. Nothing matters unless you let it.”

Grayson didn’t realize he’d moved, but suddenly, he was on the ground, right next to the longsword.

“Don’t come any closer, Gray,” Nash warned him.

Grayson swallowed. “Don’t tell me what to do.” His throat felt swollen and rough.

Jameson looked directly at him. “So says the heir apparent.”

If you’re so perfect, Grayson imagined his brother saying,why is she dead?

“It’s my fault.” The words felt like they stuck in Grayson’s throat, but Jameson heard them all the same.

“Nothing’s everyourfault, Grayson.”

Nash moved in, and when Jameson went to raise the machete again, Nash caught his wrist. “Jamie.Enough.”

Grayson heard the machete clatter to the floor of the platform on which his brothers stood.My fault, he thought.I killed Emily.

That sentence rang in his mind: five syllables, so real and true they hurt. Grayson dropped his long-ago haiku to the ground. And then he bent, picked up the longsword, turned back to the tree house, and started swinging.

CHAPTER 82

JAMESON

Now that Ms. Grambs has been removed from both the premises and the Game, there is the matter of her key.” The Factotum said the wordremovedin a way that made Jameson want to go for his throat. Rohan hadn’t laid a hand on Avery—not in Jameson’s sight, at least—but now she was gone, and the rest of them were back in the room where this had all started.

“I’m the one who was attacked,” Zella said with an aristocratic tilt of her chin. “That makes the attacker’s key mine, does it not?”

“Where’s Avery?” Jameson demanded. “What did you do with her?”

Branford placed a hand on his shoulder. “Easy, nephew.”

“Soft touch,” Katharine scoffed. “You always have been, Simon.”

“Enough.” Rohan held up a hand, silencing all four remaining players. Then he turned to Zella. “Do you really expect me to just hand this over to you?” He brandished the final key.

“No.” Zella’s smile looked almost serene, but to Jameson, it didn’tfeellike a smile. “Truthfully, Rohan, I make it a rule to have no expectations at all where you are concerned.”

Rohan openly studied the duchess for a moment, like she was a puzzle he hadn’t quite solved—and didn’t particularly enjoy solving. “As to your question, Mr. Hawthorne,” the Factotum said, his gaze still locked on Zella, “Avery Grambs has been returned to her rather overzealous bodyguard—a touching reunion, I assure you.” With a flourish, Rohan held the key up once more. He hopped onto the stone windowsill “The Game will begin anew,” he announced, “with the striking of the bell.”

The Factotum smiled. Jameson did not trust that smile.