Page 44 of The Grandest Game

“And we did,” Savannah countered.

“Did we?” Rohan challenged.To solve the puzzle, focus on the words.Her breathing fell in with his again, and suddenly, it clicked.

Hesawit. The simplicity of the puzzle. The beauty of it. A clever architect built challenging games, yes, but there had to be objective answers, a clear path, one that, once recognized, was starkly, obviously correct.

Rohan moved the Styrofoam Sonic cup next to the quarters. And then he paired another two objects: the rose petal, the mirrored plate.

That just left the Scrabble tiles and the poetry magnets.

“Forget everything we’ve done,” Rohan told Savannah, his voice charged. “Forget the letters on those tiles, forget the words in the poetry kit, forget any ideas you might have entertained about searching this room for more clues. All paths lead to Rome.”

Who knew how many hints there were in this room—or any of the others? Who knew how many ways the puzzle makers had given them to realize that it really wasthis simple?

“Do you see it?” There was a low hum of anticipation in Rohan’s voice. He wanted her to solve this, wanted her to see what he saw.The cup, the coins, the petal, the plate.

“Focus on the words,” Rohan murmured.

He knew the exact second Savannah saw it.

Chapter 34

LYRA

Chimes sounded. The scoreboard reappeared on the screen. Beneath Lyra’s team’s symbol—the heart—the score remained the same. Beneath the diamond, the numeral 2 appeared.

“Two answers in one go,” Lyra noted. “One of the other teams found the trick.” There was always a trick, and Lyra and her team were missing it. They hadbeenmissing it.

Lyra looked down at the word magnets spread out on the floor in front of her. She’d had her way with it, her hands piecing together a poem that had led exactly nowhere, one she couldn’t afford for anyone else to see.

She dashed her hand through the words.

“The only way another team gets two answers right at the same time,” Lyra continued doggedly, pushing to her feet, “is if there’s a pattern.” She closed her eyes. “So what’s the pattern?”

Silence, and then: “Persuasive, isn’t she?” Odette said.

A full five seconds passed before Grayson replied. “Unexpectedly so.”

He’d spoken those words from the floor. Lyra’s eyes flew open. Grayson was kneeling, with one knee down and one raised, over the poetry magnets and the poem that he had—seemingly effortlessly—pieced back together.

Lyra cursed herself. And the room they were locked in. And him. Mostly him.

Grayson stood. Lyra thought for one horrendous moment that he was going to look at her, but he turned his attention to the scoreboard instead. “For the past year or two,” Grayson said, his cadence slow and deliberate, “there is something that I have been working on. Practicing.”

“And what is that?” Lyra asked, doing what she thought was a pretty good impression of someone whowasn’tburning with the profound desire to launch herself head-first into the sun.

“Being wrong,” Grayson said.

“You have topracticebeing wrong?” Lyra considered the merits of launchinghiminto the sun instead.

“Some people can make mistakes, make amends, and move on.” Grayson kept right on looking at the scoreboard. “And some of us live with each and every mistake we make carved into us, into hollow places we don’t know how to fill.”

Lyra hadn’t been expecting that. Not from him. She knew the hollow places all too well.

“Growing up,” Grayson continued, “I was not allowed to make mistakes the way my brothers were. I was supposed to be his heir. I was held to a higher standard.”

His.Grayson’s meaning was very clear.Tobias Hawthorne’s.Lyra managed to recover her voice. “Your grandfather left everything to a stranger.”

“And now,” Grayson replied evenly, “I practice being wrong.” He took a step toward her. “Iwaswrong, Lyra.”