Page 93 of The Grandest Game

“My symptoms include a tightness in my jaw, increased heart rate, and a desire to use foul language in particularly creative combinations.”

“You’re angry,” Lyra realized.Not in pain—or at least, not any more pain than you’re used to.

“We were given a certain allotment of time to complete this challenge,” Odette replied, “and now, it is suddenly clear that the time we thought we had left before dawn was an illusion—a twist befitting of a Hawthorne game, is it not? Misdirection and illusions in place of truth.”

Lyra thought suddenly about Odette saying that Tobias Hawthorne was the best and worst man she’d ever known.

“Had this outage been planned,” Grayson said slowly, “we would have been given a hint foreshadowing its occurrence—in the metal room, perhaps, or straight from the beginning. We would have puzzled over some cryptic line or clue, and the moment the lights went out, everything would have made sudden, crystalline sense. But this? It’s senseless, and I assure both of you, that is one thing that Hawthorne games are not.”

Listening to Grayson, it was impossible for Lyra not to believe him—about the game and about everything else.Last year, when I told you to stop calling—I didn’t mean it.

“The emergency and hint buttons,” Lyra said, the words coming out thicker than she meant for them to. “Do they still work?”

“I’ll try them,” Grayson said—but Lyra beat him to it, moving through the dark like it was nothing, finding the buttons, pressing them.

There was no response.

“The radio’s out,” Grayson concluded. “I told you—this wasn’t planned.”

“Perhaps not by your brothers or Ms. Grambs,” Odette said. There was something understated in her tone, something soft and deeply concerning.

“Speak plainly, Ms. Morales.” Grayson ordered through the darkness.

“Layers upon layers.” Odette’s voice never changed—not in volume, not in pitch, not in emphasis or pacing. “In the grandest of games, there are no coincidences.”

She hadn’t saidthe Grandest Game. She’d saidthe grandest of games—like they were two different things.

“The house.” Odette clipped the words. “This room. The locking mechanisms, the elaborate chain reactions—they aren’t entirely manual, are they? They require power.”

“Yes,” Grayson said, and Lyra translated that Grayson Hawthorneyes.

This time, they really were locked in—and itwasn’ta part of the master plan.

Chapter 67

GIGI

Stay put,” Knox ordered Gigi. “Stand still and try not to kill yourself.”

The next thing Gigi heard through the darkness was the sound of Knox dropping down through the trapdoor. Seconds later, Gigi heard heated words being exchanged below, but she couldn’t make them out. Her brain helpfully superimposed what Knox had said earlier over whatever argument he and Brady were having now.

I have never and will never tell Brady, because Brady couldn’t even begin to understand a Calla Thorp good-bye.Gigi thought about the scar at the base of Knox’s neck. She thought about Brady saying that no one shot a bow like Calla.

And then she thought about Brady telling Knox they weren’t brothers.

Standing there—in darkness, alone—Gigi’s mind went to the bug and the fact that if someone was listening, they were getting a real show. She looked out into the night.

There were no signs of a storm, nothing that would have knocked out the power. Maybe this was a part of the game. Maybe the game makers had planned this, but deep down, Gigi didn’t believe that.

She believed that someone else was on the island.The Thorps aren’t the only game in town, Knox had said, after jerking his head toward the bug.And Orion Thorp isn’t the only member of his family who likes to play.

Gigi’s hand came to rest on the outside of her thigh. Her gown was thick enough that she couldn’t feel the knife underneath.What if the power was cut?

She fished the bug out of the front of her dress. Three breaths later, she spoke. “I know you’re out there.”

Silence.

“I know you’re out there,” she said again.