Page 90 of The Grandest Game

Gigi took in the room around them. “It’s gone,” she whispered.The Victorian mansion and the castle. Every last doll. Every last accessory. Every last everything.And that wasn’t all.

The bookshelves were bare.

“How is this even possible?” Brady said. “We were gone under two minutes.”

“I know this one.” Gigi raised a hand. “There are actually two sets of shelves positioned back-to-back, built to rotate.” Gigi placed her hands together, palm against palm, to demonstrate. “We went up, they spun the bookshelves, swapping in the empty ones. And bonus—those empty shelves have a little something extra.”

Symbols, carved into the wood.

The three of them spent the next hour trying to decode those symbols, looking for patterns. There were easily fifty different emblems carved into the bare shelves. Some shapes repeated. Others didn’t. Gigi worked her way through each and every one.

A starburst, a heptagon, the does-not-equal sign, the letterG, the number 9, a sun…

“What’s going on inside that mind of yours?” Brady came to stand shoulder to shoulder with Gigi, peering at the symbols she’d been trying to stare into submission for the past five minutes.

“Chaos,” Gigi replied honestly. “Pretty much always.”

Brady’s lips curved. “Remind me to tell you later about chaos theory.”

“Tell me something about it now.” Gigi moved down the line and looked at the next symbol: zigzagging lines, stacked one on top of another.A wave?

“Something about chaos theory?” Brady considered that—and her. “Let’s see… Initial conditions. Strange attractions. Fractal geometry.”

“Give it a rest,” Knox snapped on the other side of the room.

“Or what?” Brady replied. “There is no chain of command here, Knox. I’m not fifteen anymore, and we’re not brothers.”

That sucked the oxygen out of the room. Brady didn’t so much as check Knox’s reaction, but Gigi did.Wounded eyebrows.

“Fine.” Knox’s tone was bladed and unwavering. “You two keep flirting about chaos theory. I’m going back up.”

Knox went for the rope. For reasons Gigi couldn’t even begin to understand, she followed. By the time she pulled herself through the trapdoor and to a standing position, Knox had already claimed all four of their objects.

“What is your problem?” Gigi demanded.

“My problem?” Knox didn’t even bother to turn around. “This team. Brady.You.”

“Growl all you want, honey badger,” Gigi told him. “You don’t scare me.”

“Why would I want you scared?” Knox replied. “The more strategic move would be to win your trust and use that to my advantage. It’s a good thing I’m so personable, isn’t it, Happy?”

It was the use of the nickname that got to Gigi. “Why did you do it?” she asked.

“Do what?” Knox said tersely.

“Last year.” Gigi looked down. “Why did you take a deal with Orion Thorp?” Knox didn’t answer, so Gigi rephrased. “With Calla’s father?”

“Brady told you… something.”

“He told me all of it,” Gigi said.

Knox looked down at the objects he’d come up here to fetch: the wrapping paper, the nail polish remover, the sunglasses, the yarn. “Calla wasn’t taken. She ran away.”

“Brady said—”

“Callaleft.” Knox’s voice went guttural, but when he spoke again, it was in a dispassionate tone. “She wasn’t abducted. Her family isn’t holding her captive somewhere. She’s not missing. She didn’t meet with foul play. And I know that, because the night before Callaleft, she came to me to say good-bye.”

Gigi stared at him. “Why wouldn’t you tell Brady that?” She paused. “Why would you tell me that?”