CHAPTER 51 LYRA
LYRA
Cutting through the gold leaf adorning the walls revealed cream-colored wallpaper underneath.
It was sedate. Understated. Lyra and Zara turned their attention to the plush carpet next, ripping up a corner to reveal dark wood beneath.
Grayson returned before they’d finished the process, and without batting an eye at the destruction, he went to work, joining their efforts to tear up the carpet and pry moldings from the wall.
“News?” Lyra said.
Grayson summarized what he’d learned in five words: “The Gilded Blade has Eve.”
Lyra shot a startled look at Zara, who hadn’t said a word about that, and then Lyra thought back to Eve telling Grayson that she was meant for grander things than any of them. “Eve sought out an invitation,” Lyra said quietly. “She said yes.”
“And then some,” Grayson confirmed grimly, ripping a long strip of carpet up. Lyra ran her hand over the floorboards underneath, and Grayson continued. “Alisa spoke with Knox Landry.”
Based on Grayson’s tone, Lyra had a pretty good idea what at least part of that conversation had been about. “Did he also happen to give her an update on your sisters?” Lyra asked, her fingers probing at the seam where one dark, gleaming board met the next.
“Savannah is en route to England with Rohan, and Knox called to let Alisa know that Gigi was planning to waltz right back into the fire—and by that, I mean Helena Thorp’s house, on the theory that Calla’s great-grandmother may know more about this test the Candidates undergo than she’s said.”
“Did Alisa tell Knox to stop Gigi from going back in?” Lyra asked.
“She told him to go in with her.” It was crystal clear how Grayson felt about that.
“Anything else from Knox?” Lyra asked.
“Apparently, this test the Candidates are put through—it’s called the Crucible.”
There was something ominous about the sound of that. Lyra almost shivered as she ran her hand back over the floorboard she’d just touched and realized: There was some different about the grain of the wood, the feel of the seam. She looked up at Grayson. “I think I might have found something.”
Grayson was beside her in an instant, his hands brushing hers as they both probed the board. Within seconds, they’d found the release. The board popped up. As they removed it, adrenaline flooded Lyra’s veins, but there was no box in the hidden compartment below.
There was, however, a golden arrow.
Zara walked to stand over them. “I can promise you—that isn’t Skye’s.”
Grayson met Lyra’s eyes. “On three,” he said, his fingers gripping the arrow just beneath its head. Lyra reached to add her hand to his and cut to the chase.
“Three.” They lifted the arrow, and the moment they did, there was a click, followed by the sound of turning gears, and then—
“The closet,” Grayson said, taking sole possession of the arrow as he stood and strode in that direction. Lyra followed to see a wall parting, revealing a darkened passageway beyond. Grayson stepped over the newly revealed threshold first, shining the light from his phone into the passage beyond.
Alice’s rooms. Alice’s arrow. What were the chances that somewhere in this passage they’d find Alice’s box?
Lyra looked back at Zara. “Coming?”
“No.” Zara gave a graceful shake of her head.
“I should get back to my father’s keys. I understood him at least a little.
It’s clearer now than ever that my mother was as incomprehensible to me as I was to her.
” Zara pressed her lips together for a moment.
“We buried her. I saw her body. How does a person even begin to fake something like that?” Zara visibly steeled herself.
“No, whatever secrets my mother left behind, she clearly did not intend them for me.”
Just like that, Zara was gone, and Lyra turned back toward Grayson. It took her eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness in the passageway, but it took no time at all for her hands to make their way to the walls.
“There’s nothing here,” Grayson said, pushing deeper into the darkness, scanning the walls and floor with the light on his phone as Lyra felt her way along behind him. “We’ll keep going, bit by bit.”
They took their time, carefully searching the passageway as they went. Eventually, they hit first one hidden staircase, then another. It was only when the second staircase let out in what appeared to be a tunnel that Grayson broached the topic of the time Lyra had spent with his aunt.
“I take it Zara told you about the latest media frenzy?” Grayson said, his voice echoing all around them. They had to be underground now, in the tunnel system beneath the estate.
“That the press knows my name?” Lyra replied. “What about it? Alisa’s controlling the story. No one knows Avery is missing. That’s a good thing.”
“You are the story now, Lyra.”
“I can live with that.”
Grayson turned back to face her. “I don’t like that the world knows who you are. I don’t like that the press is shouting from the rooftops that you’re here.”
“Why not?” Lyra said. She couldn’t help thinking about what Zara had said about Grayson being who he was. “I can take it.”
“I don’t doubt it, but on Hawthorne Island, you received a calla lily, Lyra.”
She’d found one—and that flower hadn’t been a part of the game.
“The Gilded Blade has Avery,” Grayson said, his voice downright lethal. “They have Eve. They aren’t getting you, Lyra.”
LYRA, MY LYRA.
She will come for you.
This time, Lyra didn’t let herself get bogged down in questions she didn’t have answers for. “You say that like you’re anticipating an argument,” she told Grayson.
“And you say that,” Grayson countered, “as if you have never before in your life participated in one.”
“I’m a docile soul.”
Grayson still held the golden arrow in his right hand, but his left made its way to her neck. He gently tilted her head back just so. “My grandmother and her ilk aren’t getting anywhere near you, not ever again. That’s a promise.” His lips brushed hers—just the smallest of touches, just a moment.
And then they got back to work.