CHAPTER 79 LYRA
LYRA
R espect the grayest pile —the words echoed through Lyra’s mind as she walked through the remains of that once-great mansion— for the departed creature’s sake that hovered there a while.
For Lyra, the clue called to mind a tombstone—or ashes, which was how she’d ended up back in the one place on the island where it was even harder not to think about Grayson Hawthorne: the ruins.
Lyra remembered walking this place with her eyes closed on day one. She remembered Grayson’s hand on her arm—then forced herself to focus on the charred world around her. Respect the grayest pile…
At night, with no source of light but her watch, there was no reason for Lyra to close her eyes, but she did it anyway.
For the departed creature’s sake… She found her way to what remained of the hearth. That hovered there a while.
Nothing lasted forever. That was what Lyra took from the words, no matter how hard she tried to see them as a riddle. All any human could hope for was to hover for a while, and then, in the blink of a cosmic eye, that person’s life was over and gone and done, and the world went on.
Beside the hearth, Lyra sank to her knees, opening her eyes and running her hands over the ground. There was no floor to speak of, only what remained of the foundation, which was cracked and splintered, vines growing through it.
Respect the grayest pile…
Even the word grayest hurt—too close to his name.
Lyra swept her hand out and over the rubble.
Crawling forward, she did the same thing again and again and again, and then finally, she must have tripped some kind of wire or trigger, because delicate beams of light began to shine up through the cracks in the foundation, illuminating the ruins in a strange, piecemeal kind of way—a little unearthly and wholly unsettling.
If she’d thought this place had looked haunted before, it was downright eerie now.
Using the scant and scattered light, Lyra continued her search, feeling for something—anything—on the ground. Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
“Respect the grayest pile.” She said the words out loud, her voice little more than a whisper. “For the departed creature’s sake that hovered there a while.”
Lyra willed the clue to make sense. She’d been the first to it, but there was no telling how long she had before someone else caught up to her.
It was still raining. She was soaked—from the rain, from the water.
Her armor provided a decent amount of protection, but her teeth were starting to chatter anyway.
And still, Lyra didn’t have it in herself to give up.
That was the problem. That was the whole damn problem . She kept going, kept searching. There had to be something. “Respect the grayest pile…”
“ For the departed creature’s sake …” A voice—that voice, his voice—spoke behind her. “… that hovered there a while.” Grayson, like Lyra, didn’t know when to give up. “Emily Dickinson,” he said.
Despite herself, Lyra rose and turned, and there he was, soaked to the bone, his pale blond hair stuck to his face in a way that should have made him look a little wild. Instead, Grayson Hawthorne looked like something out of a dream, the kind you ached for from the moment you opened your eyes.
“The clue.” It took everything Lyra had to focus on what he’d said and not the way he’d said it. “It’s a poem?”
“Ashes denote that fire was.” Grayson’s voice sounded deeper in the dark. “Respect the grayest pile… for the departed creature’s sake… that hovered there a while.”
“Grayson—” Lyra bit out his name with all the warning she could muster.
“ Fire exists the first in light …,” he continued.
“Stop.” Lyra couldn’t do this with him. She couldn’t do anything with him right now. It took her a moment to realize that he’d heeded her command. “You stopped.”
The rain was pouring down now, coating her face and his, pelting their bodies, but Lyra barely felt it.
“I know an order when I hear one,” Grayson replied. “And it has never been my intention to force on you anything you did not wish to receive.”
Lyra heard in those words a promise: If she asked him to go, he would go.
Leave me alone , she thought vehemently. Go and don’t look back. Forget it all. Forget me. Forget whatever this was. Lyra’s lips would not, could not form those words.
“You lied to me.” That was easiest enough to say, though. “And I know that you were trying to protect me, but—”
“Not just you.” Grayson bowed his neck, but his eyes found their way back to hers. “I was raised to put family first, always.”
And there it was, the truth at last, slid between her ribs as effortlessly as any blade, and yet, Lyra could not help thinking about Grayson’s definition of family. People you would die for. People you know damn well would die for you.
Loving fiercely was not a crime.
“Jameson already knew about Alice.” Grayson’s bowed head slowly rose, his shoulders squaring, rain streaming down his angular face. “He’s known for more than a year.”
Why was he telling her this now ?
“Threats were issued,” Grayson continued, a subtle but lethal quality in his voice marking those words as an understatement. “They made my brother bleed.”
They. “There are always three.” Lyra couldn’t coax her mouth into saying anything else. All she could do was stand there and wait for his response.
Grayson’s full lips parted, more words spilling out, a confession in full. “Jameson’s memory of what transpired is full of holes, very likely for the same reason that your memory of your father’s death is. But I’ve never seen him scared before, Lyra. Of anything .”
Jameson is competitive , Lyra could hear Grayson saying. Intensely and frequently reckless. Fearless to a fault.
“What Jameson does remember,” Grayson continued evenly, “is that he thought he was going to die—that they were going to kill him.”
“What the hell is this?” Lyra said sharply. “All of it. Any of it.”
She still couldn’t tell Grayson to go, so she went—across the broken, uneven foundation, out onto the ruined patio with an ocean view. She walked right up to the edge, and this time, Grayson did not pull her back.
He stepped up even with her—beside her.
“I don’t know.” Those words cost him. Grayson Hawthorne was not a person with a high tolerance for not knowing. “But this? ” His tone made it clear that he wasn’t talking about Alice Hawthorne anymore—or Jameson. He wasn’t talking about danger or threats.
He was talking about them .
“ This ,” Grayson said again, “is worth fighting for.”
This. A ball of emotion rose in Lyra’s throat. “The right kind of disaster just waiting to happen,” she whispered.
“A Hawthorne and a girl who has every reason to stay away from Hawthornes.” Grayson turned his entire body toward her, and Lyra’s responded like they were dancing, like this was just another pas de deux, angling back toward him.
Water streamed down their faces, and Lyra reminded herself that Grayson was who he was, and she was who she was, and there was no changing that—for either of them.
Some things were just not meant to be.
“I need to get back to the game,” Lyra said. I , not we .
Lightning struck with sudden, electrifying force over the ocean. Seeing it out of the corner of her eye had Lyra’s head whipping back toward darkened ocean waters she could not make out in the night, and for the first time since the helipad, she felt something.
Eyes on us.
The warning rose up like bile from the pit of Lyra’s stomach and crawled down her spine.
“What is it?” Grayson said.
Lyra shook her head, then lightning struck again—close enough that it tore open the sky and lit up the world.
There was a difference between sensation and perception. It took a moment for Lyra to register what she’d seen in that blinding flash, and by the time she did, the ocean was pitch black once more.
Calla lilies. Hundreds of them. Floating on the water, washing onto the shore.