Page 95 of The Final Gambit

I pictured nineteen-year-old Toby, in the dead of night, somehow finding a way to bury the bones of the man responsible for half his DNA.

“Start at the center,” I told Jameson, my voice echoing in the space all around us, “and spiral out.”

I knew the path that would take us to the heart of the maze. I’d been there before, more than once—with Grayson.

“I don’t suppose you know where he went, do you, Heiress?” Jameson had a way of making every question sound a little wicked and a little sharp—but I knew,I knewwhat he was really asking.

What he was always trying not to ask himself when it came to Grayson and me.

“I don’t know where Grayson is,” I told Jameson, and then I hung a left, and the muscles in my throat tightened. “But I do know that he’s going to be okay. He confronted Eve. I think he finally let go of Emily, finally forgave himself for being human.”

Right turn. Left turn. Left again. Straight.We were almost to the center now.

“And now that Gray is okay,” Jameson said close behind me, “now that he’s so delightfullyhumanand ready to move on from Emily…”

I hit the center of the maze and turned around to face Jameson. “Don’t finish that question.”

I knew what he was going to ask. I knew he wasn’t wrong to ask. But still, it stung. And the only way that he was ever going to stop asking—himself, me, Grayson—was if I gave him the full, unvarnished truth.

The truth I hadn’t let myself think too often or too clearly.

“You were right before when you called my bluff,” I told Jameson. “I can’t say that it was always going to be you.”

He walked past me toward the hidden compartment in the ground where the Hawthornes kept their longswords. I heard him opening the compartment, heard him searching.

Because Jameson Winchester Hawthorne was always searching for something. He couldn’t stop. He would never stop.

And I didn’t want to, either. “I can’t say that it was always going to be you, Jameson, because I don’t believe in destiny or fate—I believe in choice.” I knelt next to him and let my fingers explore the compartment. “You chose me, Jameson, and I chose to open up to you, to all of the possibilities ofus, in a way that I had never opened up to anyone before.”

Max had told me once to picture myself standing on a cliff overlooking the ocean. I felt like I was standing there now, because love wasn’t just a choice—it was dozens, hundreds, thousands of choices.

Every day was a choice.

I moved on from the compartment that held the swords, running my hands over the ground at the center of the maze, looking, searching still. “Letting you in,” I told Jameson, the two of us crouched feet apart, “becomingus—it changed me. You taught me towant.”

How to want things.

How to wanthim.

“You made me hungry,” I told Jameson, “for everything. I want the world now.” I held his gaze in a way thatdaredhim to look away. “And I want it with you.”

Jameson made his way to me—just as my fingers hit something, buried in the grass, wedged into the soil.

Something small and round and metal.Not the Blake family seal. Just a coin. But the size, the shape…

Jameson brought his hands to my face. His thumb lightly skimmed my lips. And I said the two words guaranteed to take that spark in his eyes and set it on fire.

“Dig here.”

CHAPTER 73

My arms were aching by the time the ground caved in, revealing a chamber below—part of the tunnels, but not a part I’d ever seen.

Before I could say a word, Jameson leapt into the darkness.

I lowered myself down more cautiously, landing beside him in a crouch. I stood, shining the light from my phone. The chamber was small—and empty.

No body.