CHAPTER 7 LYRA
LYRA
T he map led Lyra down to the north shore and around to the western bank.
If the tide had been much higher, she would have had to walk through ocean to squeeze past the base of yet another cliff and around to a thin slice of sandy beach.
Rock formations out in the water broke enormous waves as they came crashing in from the west—from open ocean as far as the eye could see.
There was only one person standing on the hidden beach.
Avery Grambs. The Hawthorne heiress stood with her arms loose at her sides, staring out at the Pacific horizon and the setting sun.
She looked almost nothing like the girl on all those magazine covers—the billionaire, the philanthropist, the angel investor, the beauty.
This Avery was wearing faded jeans that were torn at the knees and a men’s sweatshirt that hung down nearly that far.
Her hair was braided back from her face in a loose, messy braid that matched the utter lack of makeup on her face.
As Lyra walked to stand next to Avery, she couldn’t help thinking that this version of the Hawthorne heiress felt real, the way that parts of the island did.
“Looks like I’m the first to arrive,” Lyra said in greeting.
“You were the first to reply to our text.” Avery smiled slightly, her gaze never diverting from the Pacific view. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
“The ocean or the sunset?” Lyra replied, and then her gaze was drawn back to the massive rock formations, which called to mind nothing so much as a circle of standing stones, like a Stonehenge on the water. “Or the rocks?”
“All of it. Look right there.” Avery pointed, and Lyra’s gaze followed the heiress’s finger to two of the stones, jutting out over the waves, with maybe a foot between them.
“Do you see that gap?” Avery said. “It’s called the Sunset Gap.
This time of year, the sun sets exactly there.
And when it first begins to set, when the sun touches the water, the way it will any minute now, if you’re looking right between those rocks, it’s like nothing else in the world. ”
Part of Lyra wanted to do nothing more than wait for the magic moment, but a bigger part of her was restless—about phase two and whatever challenges awaited, about the mysterious benefactor who’d brought her here.
About Alice and omega .
Some people just weren’t wired to stand around waiting for something marvelous to happen. Lyra looked away from the Sunset Gap, concentrating on their surroundings instead. In a recessed area beneath the cliff, there was a mound of branches, arranged just so.
“Are we having a bonfire?” Lyra asked. A fire. On Hawthorne Island. That was a choice.
Avery cheated her gaze toward Lyra. “Has anyone ever told you that you have a very expressive voice?”
Lyra didn’t have it in her to feel abashed. “Given the history,” she said, “why host a game here at all?”
The heiress took no visible offense to that question. If anything, Avery’s expression softened. “My aunt died on this island. In the fire.”
Lyra hadn’t known that.
“I never knew her, obviously,” Avery continued, “but my mom grieved what happened here. Deeply.” Avery wound her arms around her waist. “And the thing is, I never even knew she was grieving, because my mom had this incredible, ridiculous way of finding joy in the most unlikely circumstances. Anything could be a game. There was always a reason to laugh. And when she loved someone, she loved hard. No reservations. No regrets.”
And now she’s gone. The muscles in Lyra’s throat tightened. Grief recognized grief, always and in deeper places than Lyra had ever realized, back when she’d been normal.
“Joy in unlikely circumstances,” Lyra repeated quietly.
“And anything can be a game.” Lyra had read a lot about the Hawthorne family and the Hawthorne heiress over the years, but nothing she’d ever read had explained the enigma that was Avery Kylie Grambs even half as well as what the heiress had just told her.
Beside her, Avery trained her gaze back on the Sunset Gap. Lyra didn’t even try to resist doing the same. The sun was nearly touching the water, and already, it was breathtaking.
“Have you thought at all about what I told you before?” Avery asked. “About the game?”
Lyra couldn’t even blink for fear of missing the moment when the setting sun would fully fill the gap. “Sometimes,” she said, repeating back what Avery had said to her the night before, “in the games that matter most, the only way to really play is to live .”
The sun sank farther, and suddenly, a thousand shades of orange and yellow and pink filled the air, reflecting off the ocean’s surface, completely filling the Sunset Gap. Like nothing else in the world.
A full minute passed before Avery spoke again. “Do me a favor: Don’t hurt him.”
Grayson. Before Lyra could reply, before she could so much as say I couldn’t if I tried , Avery glanced back over her shoulder—and up.
“Incoming,” the heiress warned.
Lyra turned to see three figures climbing down the face of the cliff without protective equipment of any kind. Like Avery, the trio of Hawthornes was dressed in jeans and sweatshirts, but never in the history of the world had jeans and sweatshirts looked like that .
“I’d tell you that you get used to it,” Avery said beside her, “but you really don’t.” The heiress caught Lyra’s gaze one last time. “Good luck, Lyra.”
With that, Avery strode toward the base of the cliff. Jameson Hawthorne dropped a good eight feet to land beside her. Nash and Xander followed suit, and Lyra couldn’t help thinking that there was just something about the four of them.
About all of them.
The same thing that had made Lyra look away from the Sunset Gap before made her look away now.
She glanced back the way she’d come, and suddenly, like she’d dreamed him into being, Grayson was there.
He stepped onto the hidden beach dressed in black, his armor a perfect match for hers.
It fit his body better than any suit possibly could have, showing the breadth of his shoulders, the way his waist narrowed in, even the muscles of his thighs.
Lyra saw the exact moment Grayson registered her outfit. He crossed the beach in six long strides. “You slept.” In typical Grayson Hawthorne fashion, that wasn’t a question.
“I dreamed,” Lyra replied.
Grayson’s expression made it clear he took her meaning. “We will find answers,” he promised. “After the game.”
Lyra couldn’t let herself believe in after . “That kiss.” The word kiss tried its best to lodge itself in Lyra’s throat. “It can’t happen again.”
“And here I’d had you pegged as a realist.” Grayson gave her a look. “But if it’s our ability to focus you’re concerned about, logic dictates we need only wait until the game is won—until you win it.”
He acted like the two of them kissing again was a foregone conclusion, as inevitable as her victory in the game, and Lyra couldn’t even resent his arrogance, because she couldn’t shake the absolutely maddening feeling that Grayson Hawthorne dealt in facts.
That some things really were inevitable. That some people were.
“It’s not fair, really.” Lyra returned his look with one of her own. “You’re a Hawthorne. You have the advantage here.” She was talking about the Grandest Game—and she also wasn’t.
“My brothers and I were not raised to play fair,” Grayson admitted. “And on an unrelated note, it seems our competition has arrived.”
Lyra didn’t see evidence of that until a second or two later when the remaining three players began to make their way onto the hidden beach, one by one.
Savannah was the only one of the three in white.
Brady held his own longsword in his right hand.
And Rohan… Rohan moved over the sand like gravity was an issue only for lesser mortals.
“Now that the gang’s all here…” Xander Hawthorne jubilantly inserted himself between Lyra and Grayson. “May I borrow you, Lyra?”
Lyra had enough sense to be concerned. “Borrow me for what?”
Grayson’s youngest—and tallest—brother grinned. “Gallus Gallus Domesticus en Garde.”
Lyra glanced at Grayson. “Do I even want to know?”
“GGDEG,” Xander clarified helpfully. “It’s a time-honored Hawthorne tradition and not at all a way of getting to know you while Gray here is otherwise occupied.”
Grayson narrowed his eyes. Given that he was not currently occupied, Lyra didn’t blame him.
“ Gallus gallus domesticus ,” Grayson informed her, “is the scientific name for chicken .”
“Chicken,” Lyra repeated. “Chicken… en garde…” She turned to look incredulously at Xander. “Chicken fight?”
“Don’t mind if I do!” Xander wasted no time whatsoever hoisting Lyra onto his shoulders, and Lyra decided pretty early on in that process that resistance was futile. As Xander straightened to his full height, Grayson went flying.
From her spot on Xander’s shoulders, it took Lyra a moment to register what had just happened—or rather, who. Jameson. He’d just tackled Grayson.
And now , Lyra thought wryly, Grayson is otherwise occupied . “Is a flying tackle what passes for a greeting in your family?” she called down to Xander.
“If you can call that a flying tackle,” Xander scoffed, and then he let out what could only be described as a hefty battle cry. “Who among you shall stand against the mighty team-up of XanLyra? Nash? Avery? You!” Xander pointed at Rohan. “Can you get him on your shoulders?”
Lyra snorted. The him in that question appeared to be Brady Daniels. Xander seemed to be taking it for granted that Savannah would not be chicken fighting anyone , but she took one step toward them, then another.
“I’ll tell you what,” Savannah called out, raising her chin. “I’m in if Avery is.”