Page 38 of The Grandest Game

Grayson flicked a button open on his tuxedo jacket with one hand as the other laid out quarters on the marble coffee table with an audibleclick,click,click. Lyra couldn’t help noticing that he’d chosen to work on the coffee table that was half-covered in glass shards.

The one that was farther away from her.

Focus on the letters, Lyra told herself.And only the letters.She’d lined the Scrabble tiles up on the floor, the way she would have if she were actually playing Scrabble: vowels first, then consonants in alphabetical order.

A,A,E,E,E,O,O,U,U,B,C,D,G,H,N,P,R,R,T,T,W,Y.

Grayson’ssuggestionechoed in Lyra’s mind:Look for patterns, repetition, anything that will let you get it down to a smaller pool.

Icoulddo that.Lyra looked up to see a single strand of blond hair fall into that stone-carved face of his.Or I couldplay.

Grayson’s logic had been that too many words could be madefrom a pool of letters this large. But if the goal wasn’t just making words or a sentence? If the goal was laying out the perfect Scrabble board, focusing on choosing the right plays to maximize your score?

That changed the game—and Lyra had never lost at Scrabble.

She settled onUNPOWEREDas her opening play.Fifteen points.She went to theDand madeADAGE—another seven points—then doubled up, formingYEandYACHTin one go, crossing through the firstAinADAGEand allowing her to count theYtwice.Eighteen points.

Less than a minute later, Lyra had finished her board. She dragged a finger lightly over each tile, feeling the words, committing them to memory—and then she scrapped the whole thing and made another board from scratch. Then another. And another. Certain words cropped up again and again.

“Power, crown, adage,” Lyra murmured.

“If only there were an adage about power.”

Lyra realized with a start that Odette Morales was standing directly over her.

“One with explicit reference,” the old woman continued, “to a crown.”

Adage. Power. Crown.It took Lyra a moment, but she got there.“Heavy is the head that wears the crown.”

“I prefer the original version myself.” Odette walked toward the wall of windows, commanding the room as if she were on a stage and the audience was out there in the dark.“Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.”

“Shakespeare.” Grayson stood.“Henry IV, Part Two.”He crossed the room and took in Lyra’s board. “You’re not even trying to eliminate letters.”

Lyra wasn’t about to let him tower over her, so she stood.“Maybe I don’t need to eliminate anything.” She walked briskly past him to the screen and its three blinking cursors. She tapped one, and a keyboard appeared. “Shakespeare.” Lyra tried the word, then hit enter. The screen flashed red. “Henry. Henry4. Henry4P2. Henry4Part2.”

Every combination Lyra tried ended with the same result: a red flash, a wrong answer.

“Try Roman numerals instead of numbers,” Odette said, coming to stand behind her.

Lyra did as she’d been bidden, trying each of the combinations again. “No go.”

“Prince.Knight.Succession.King.” Odette threw out one suggestion after another.

“It won’t be that simple.” Grayson strode toward Lyra. He stopped three feet away from her, but Grayson Hawthorne had the kind of presence that extended well past his body.

Lyra’s own body clocked his position, no matter where he stood.

“If you’ve indeed found something—and I am not convinced you have, Ms. Kane—then it is almost certainly the case that what you have found is not an answer but a clue.”

There was something about the overly formal, self-important way Grayson saidMs. Kanethat made Lyra briefly entertain the idea of throwing something at him.

“And didyoufind anything, Mr. Hawthorne?” Odette asked pointedly.

“There are forty quarters in a roll.” Grayson arched a brow. “All of ours were minted in the same year except two.”

“I suppose you want us to ask about the year?” Odette said dryly.

“Thirty-eight of the quarters were minted in nineteen ninety-one.” Grayson looked to Lyra, and she couldn’t shake the feeling that he was testing her.