Page 90 of The Brothers Hawthorne

Had he even decoded Rohan’s verbal clue? Or had he just assumed that of course there would be a key in one of the caves? Was that particular cave known as the smugglers’ cave?

Had he played there with Jameson’s father as a child?

No.Jameson wasn’t going to go down that rabbit hole—or any rabbit hole other than figuring out where the hell the remaining two keys were.

Katharine and Branford are here. What about Zella?

What if she had already found one?

What if the Game was already lost?

No.Jameson refused to give into that line of thinking.If Rohan suspected how easily Branford would find the smugglers’ cave key, then it won’t be the one that opens the prize box.

But it might be the one that opens my secret.

“Jameson?”

Avery’s voice pulled him back to the present. Neither Katharine nor Branford had yet exited the cave.Unless there’s another way in and out.Yet another piece of information that Branford would have had from growing up here that Jameson didn’t.

“The odds are stacked.” Jameson said that like a fact, not a complaint. “Branford knows this place. He got to the key first. And Katharine—I don’t know who exactly she is, or how far her connection to this family goes back, but I’d guess pretty damn far.”

Jameson would have bet everything he had that this wasn’t her first trip to Vantage. She’d clearly known Branford since he was a child.

Since my father and uncles were children.Thinking about Ian was a distraction right now—and if there was one thing that Jameson was certain of, it was that he couldn’t afford a distraction.

Couldn’t afford to lose another key.

“We’ll head back up.” Avery’s voice was steady. “There are still two more keys out there, and given that four out of the five of us ended up at the caves first, I doubt this key isthekey.”

Her mind had a habit of mirroring his own, and that meant that she knew as well as he did: The next key wastheirs. It had to be.

They went back the way they came. And the entire time, Jameson was running through everything that Rohan had said before the start of the Game. The Factotum hadn’t just intimated that he’d given them enough information to findakey; he’d suggested that they had what they needed towin.

What were his exact words?Jameson could practically hear the old man quizzing him. Hawthorne games were won and lost based on attention to detail. Fortunes were made and lost based on the same.

Jameson summoned an image of Rohan talking and played back the words he’d said—exactly.If that’s your way of asking if I’ve made it easy for you all, Rohan had told Zella,I have not. No rest for the wicked, my dear. But it would hardly be sporting if I hadn’t given you everything you needed to win.

Jameson watched where he was going, made sure that his foot never slipped. Avery was ahead of him, and he watched her climb, willing his mind to see what others might miss.

No rest for the wicked…

It would hardly be sporting…

Rohan’s use of the termsmugglehadn’t been accidental. He hadn’taccidentallyleft that book. What were the chances that every other turn of phrase he’d used had been intentional, too?

Think back further.Jameson kept climbing up that cliff. Seventy feet off the ground. A hundred. No margin for error.

He went back over Rohan’s every statement, starting at the top.

Hidden somewhere on this estate are three keys. The manor, the grounds—they’re all fair play. There are also three boxes. The Game is simple. Find the keys. Open the boxes. Two of the three contain secrets. Two of yours, as a matter of fact.

Jameson didn’t dwell on that. One foot after the other, a hundred twenty feet up.

So, two boxes with secrets. In the third, you’ll find something much more valuable. Tell me what you find in the third box, and you’ll win the mark.

It was called a mark. Not a chip. Not a token. Amark. And why was amarknecessary at all? It had already been established at that point that they all knew the stakes they were playing for.

Leave the manor and the grounds in the condition in which you found them. Dig up the yard, and you’d best fill the holes. Anything broken must be mended. Leave no stone unturned but smuggle nothing out.