Page 20 of The Grandest Game

“Handsome bugger,” Rohan said. He let Nash think that was a compliment, then clarified. “Nash Hawthorne,” he said, nodding to Nash, and then he gestured toward himself. “Handsome bugger. Pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

Nash snorted. “You got a last name? I already know your first.”

Rohan somehow doubted that all the players in the Grandest Game were getting personal welcomes from Nash Hawthorne. He sighed. “If this is about your brother’s ribs…”

“I’ve never begrudged a man a fair fight.” Nash removed his cowboy hat and ran his thumb along the rim. “This is just me, making a prediction: It’s not gonna be you.”

Nash was talking about the game. He was saying that Rohan was going to lose.

“Behold my devastation.” Rohan held a hand to his heart.

Nash pushed off the wall and strolled toward Rohan. The fact that the cowboy kept eye contact should have felt like a challenge, just like Nash’spredictionshould have, but Rohan couldn’t sense even the slightest hint of a dominance maneuver in the man’s words or actions.

Nash Hawthorne simplywas.

“Our games have heart,” Nash said, and then he squatted to place something on the floor in front of Rohan and straightened back to his full height. “It ain’t gonna be you, kid.”

This time, the words felt less like a prediction than an admonition. In other circumstances, Rohan might have even considered the delivery… brotherly. But Nash Hawthorne wasn’t looking for another little brother, and Rohan wasn’t looking for anything but the monetary resources he needed to win to claim the Mercy.

He looked to the object Nash had placed on the floor: a bronze key, large and ornate.

“Find the room that opens,” Nash advised. “You’ll know what to do once you do.” With that, Nash turned to saunter away.

You think you know what I’m capable of, do you, Hawthorne?Rohan did love to make people think again. “Congratulations, by the way,” he called after Nash. “On the babies.”

Chapter 16

LYRA

Someone was playing mind games. As Lyra stepped onto a stone porch framed by enormous wooden pillars on either side, she looked to the western horizon, where the setting sun dyed the ocean in shades of stormy purple and a deep, burnt orange.

Sundown couldn’t have been more than three minutes away.

Lyra had resisted the urge torunto the house on the north point. Her dancer’s body could focus even when her mind was elsewhere, but she’d very pointedly taken her time, because if the person responsible for those notes had hoped to throw her off her game, if they’d hoped to either make her miss the deadline or make her rash, they were going to be sorely disappointed.

Lyra was not that easily manipulated.

The enormous house in front of her was made of brown stone and natural wood that might have looked rustic if the structure’s design—the angles, the pillars, the height—hadn’t called to mind something more like a church with a soaring steeple. The frontdoor looked like it was made of solid silver, its surface etched with a geometric design.

Lyra ran her hand over the silver door, then opened it. Crossing the threshold into an enormous foyer, she saw a white spiral staircase rising up from an obsidian floor. Moving toward the staircase, light on her feet, Lyra realized: The stairs didn’t just spiralup.

What had appeared from the front of the house to be the ground floor was actually thethirdstory. The stairs spiraled up; the stairs spiraled down. Lyra saw now what would have been obvious if she’d explored the north point in detail earlier: This house hadn’t just been built on a cliff, at the tallest elevation on the island.

It had been builtintothe cliff.

On either side of the sprawling entryway were identical doors, with a third visible beyond the staircase. All three doors were made of dark, gleaming wood, each standing ten feet tall, each closed. In the foyer, there was a black granite table bearing seven silver trays, each marked by a card on which a name had been written in extravagant calligraphy.

The entryway was eerily silent as Lyra read through the names, one by one.

Odette.

Brady.

Knox.

Lyra.

Savannah.