Page 59 of The Grandest Game

Odette snorted. “You know perfectly well that you are not.”

“You told us that you spent decades cleaning other people’s houses.” Lyra narrowed her eyes.“To scrape by.”

Odette had been very convincing. Just like she’d been convincing when she’d told them not to assumefacts not in evidenceabout her character and her potential involvement with the notes.

Thomas, Thomas, Tommaso, Tomás.

“I’m an old woman. I’ve had my share of lives.” Odette raised her chin. “I have lived more and loved more than your young minds could possibly imagine. And…” She took in a measured breath. “I amfine.” Odette strode toward the wall with the riddle, her steps slow but sure. “Pain can provide clarity at times. It occurs to me: You can wash a frog, but you don’t wash a frogout.” Odette stared at the words on the wall. “Set aside the first two lines of the riddle,” she murmured. “What’s left?”

Wash me out, Lyra thought.Give me a kiss. Don’t say a word but make a wish.

Thanks to Grayson, Lyra thought about blowing out candles, and the moment she did, a series of memories washed over herwith the force of a tsunami: her fourth birthday—not the part of that day that haunted her in dreams, but the rest of it. She remembered her mom waking her up that morning, making her chocolate chip pancakes with cream cheese icing and rainbow sprinkles.

Happy birthday, baby!

Lyra could almost feel herself blowing out the candles her mother had put in those pancakes.Make a wish.And then Lyra remembered something else: a stranger picking her up from preschool that afternoon.I’m your father, Lyra. Your real father. Come with me.

Lie-rah.

Lie-rah.

The memory threatened to pull her under, but Lyra tooth-and-nail fought her way back to the safest part of thinking about that day: the morning and the pancakes and the candles.Make a wish.Her gaze held steady on the words on the wall, Lyra rounded her lips and lightly blew, and just like that, she had it.

The answer.

What did people wash out when it misbehaved? What did you use to blow out a candle and make a wish? To speak? Tokiss?

“A mouth,” Lyra said, her voice echoing off the chamber’s walls.

“As in,” Grayson replied, “the mouth of a cave.”

Chapter 45

GIGI

Optimism was a choice, so Gigichoseto believe that the time she spent staring at herself in the bathroom mirror was productive. Best-case scenario, Knox and Brady would perform an exorcism on the ghosts of their past and hug it out, all while Gigi brilliantly and single-handedly solved their riddle. To that end, she pulled out her trusty marker, which she might or might not have had stashed in her cleavage, and hopped up to perch on the edge of the sink so she could write the words of the riddle on the surface of the mirror.

I COME BEFORE FALL

AFTER THE CENTER

AND NOT BAD AT ALL

IN FRONT OF A HORSE

NAMED LILY OR ROSE

OR COOLNESS IN SHADOW

I’M ALL OF THOSE

WHAT AM I?

Starting at the beginning hadn’t gotten Gigi anywhere, so this time, she started at the end. The last line—the question—was self-explanatory.I’m all of thoseseemed to indicate that the answer somehow fit everything that had been previously described. Moving up another line got her tocoolness in shadow, which probably, maybe, possibly, conceivably meantshade.

In front of a horse named Lily or Rose.In the riddle, that bit had occupied two lines, making it seem like there might be two separate answers—one for the flowers, one for the horse. But ignoring the spacing, they flowed together.

A single clue?Gigi’s fingers found their way to the vibrant blue-green pendant nestled just above her collarbone. She closed her fingers around it and thought harder.A horse named Lily or Rose.Obviously, those were flower names, but this was a riddle.Obviousdidn’t meanright. So what was thelessobvious interpretation?