Page 114 of The Final Gambit

“Ready.” Libby looked down at the water balloons she held in each hand—and at her twin tattoos:SURVIVORon one wrist, and on the other…TRUST.

Footsteps.I braced myself just as Nash scaled Theseus and landed between Libby and me, holding what appeared to be ameltedwater gun. “Jamie and Gray have joined forces. Xander has a blowtorch. This is never good.” Nash looked to me. “You’re still armed. Good. Steady and calm, kid. No mercy.”

Libby leaned around Nash to catch my eyes. “Remember,” she told me, her eyes dancing, “there’s no such thing as fighting dirty if you win.”

I turned my water gun on Nash right as she creamed him with a water balloon.

At eight, the party moved indoors to the climbing wall. Jameson sidled up to me. “Soaking wet in a ball gown,” he murmured. “This could be a challenge.”

I wrung out my hair and flicked water his way. “I’m up for it.”

At nine, we made our way to the bowling alley. At ten, we headed for the pottery—as in, a room with potting wheels and a kiln.

By the time eleven o’clock rolled around and we made our way down the labyrinthine halls of Hawthorne House to the arcade, our gowns and tuxes had been soaked, ripped, and spattered with clay. I was exhausted, sore, and filled with an exhilaration that defied description.

This was it.

This wasthenight.

This was everything.

This wasus.

In the arcade, four private chefs met us, each with a signature dish to present.Slow-braised beef soup served with pork buns so tender they should be illegal. Lobster risotto.The first two courses nearly undid me, and that was before I bit into a sushi roll that looked like a work of art just as the final chef set our dessert on fire.

I looked to Oren. He was the one who’d cleared the private chefs to come here tonight. “You have to try this,” I told him. “All of it.”

I watched as Oren gave in and tasted a pork bun, and then I felt someone else watching me. Grayson was wearing a silver tuxedo with sharp, angular lines, no bow tie, the shirt buttoned all the way up.

I thought he might keep his distance, but he strode over to me, his expression assessing. “You have a plan,” he commented, his voice low and smooth and sure.

My heart rate ticked up. I didn’t just have a plan. I hadA Plan. “I wrote it down,” I told Grayson. “And then I rewrote it, again and again.”

He was the Hawthorne I’d thought of the most as I was doing it, the one whose reaction I could least predict.

“I’m glad,” Grayson told me, the words slow and deliberate, “that it was you.” He took a step back, clearing the way for Jameson to slide in next to me.

“Have you decided yet,” Jameson asked me, “what room you’re going to add on to Hawthorne House this year?”

I wondered if he could feel my anticipation, if he had any idea what we were counting downto. “I’ve made a lot of decisions,” I said.

Alisa hadn’t arrived yet, but she would be here soon.

“If you’re planning to build a death-defying obstacle course on the south side of the Black Wood,” Xander said, bouncing up, high off a Skee-Ball victory, “count me in! I have a lead on where we can get a reasonably priced two-story-tall teeter-totter.”

I grinned. “What would you do,” I asked Jameson, “if you were adding on a room?”

Jameson pulled my body back against his. “Indoor skydiving complex, accessible from a secret passage at the base of the climbing wall. Four stories tall, looks just like another turret from the outside.”

“Please.” Thea sauntered over holding a pool cue. She was wearing a long silver dress that left wide strips of bronze skin on display and was slit to the thigh. “The correct answer is obviouslyballroom.”

“The foyer is as big as a ballroom,” I pointed out. “Pretty sure it’s been used that way for decades.”

“And yet,” Thea countered, “it remainsnot a ballroom.” She turned back toward the pool table, where she and Rebecca were facing off against Libby and Nash. Bex leaned over the table, lining up what looked to be an impossible shot, her green velvet tuxedo pulling against her chest, her dark red hair combed to one side and falling into her face

The world had accepted my account of Will Blake’s death. The blame was laid squarely at the feet of Tobias Hawthorne. But once Toby had appeared, miraculously alive, and announced that he was changing his name to Tobias Blake, it hadn’t taken the press long to piece together that he was Will’s son—or to start speculating about who Toby’s biological mother was.

Rebecca had made it clear that she still didn’t regret stepping into the light.