CHAPTER 57 LYRA
LYRA
This time, Lyra woke before Grayson did, and she kept watch as he slept in wild grass, in a hidden garden they’d found the night before.
Beneath the greenhouse, they’d discovered a tunnel, a nearly mile-long tunnel that had dead-ended in a staircase that had led them back up into a small courtyard, hidden away on a remote corner of the estate, its very presence masked by thorny brush on all sides.
There was a garden in that courtyard, one that had clearly gone untended for years.
Possibly decades.
Lyra and Grayson had spent hours and hours searching through dense vegetation and digging through dirt, and they’d come away with nothing—until they’d turned their attention to the courtyard wall and cleared away enough vines to reveal a plaque underneath, which read:
OUR LOVE WAS NEVER BLACK-AND-WHITE
LIKE AN APPLE, IT WAS ALWAYS RED
Black. White. Red. They’d continued looking, and eventually, they’d found a way to make that wall move, and behind it, they’d found a small room.
A small white room, covered in years’ worth of dust, its walls an intricate and complicated maze.
Lyra and Grayson had spent all night solving the puzzle of the maze, but all their hard work had won them was passage back into the courtyard, where Grayson had removed his suit jacket, hung it on the branch of a gnarled tree, and driven his fists into the courtyard wall again and again, until Lyra had put herself between him and the wall.
He’d stopped, and Lyra had brought his battered knuckles to her lips, and eventually, they’d slept.
Keeping watch over him now, Lyra wasn’t sure how many more dead ends either of them could take.
Grayson’s jacket still hung on the branch. His shirt was unbuttoned, and all Lyra could think, looking at him, marking the subtle rise and fall of his chest, was that Grayson Hawthorne had let her pull him back from the edge.
He’d let go, and so had she, and Lyra’s mother had been right. Sometimes, when you knew the other person, it really was that simple.
And simple the moment remained, right up until the text came in from Alisa.
In a room that had once been Tobias Hawthorne’s study, Grayson set Alice’s golden arrow down on the desk.
“We’ve got him.” Alisa wasted no time cutting to the heart of the matter. “The man in the sketch. His name was Edgar Aquila Reyes.”
The blood in Lyra’s veins turned electric. “Aquila.” Lyra looked to Grayson. “That was one of the three asterisked names in Eve’s file. And Reyes—that was another one.”
Grayson slipped his hand, torn knuckles and all, into Lyra’s. “Did Edgar have a brother?” he asked Alisa, who held out the piece of paper in her hand in response.
It was a printout of a photograph. Lyra accepted it—and stared. In the photo, a dark-haired woman held what looked to be a newborn in a pale blue blanket. Standing in front of the woman were two little boys, one of them the spitting image of Lyra as a child. And the other…
“Tomás,” Lyra said. Her father.
“Records suggest the name he was given at birth was actually Luiz—Luiz Aquila Reyes. Two last names, one from each parent, per convention in Spain and many Latin American countries, including Brazil.”
“Brazil.” Lyra stared at the photo. “Is that where this was taken?”
Is that where my father was from—or is from?
“Their mother and father immigrated to the States from Brazil,” Alisa said, “not all that long before this picture was taken.” Whatever she might have said next was cut off by the sound of a violent bang.
A gunshot?
“Door,” Grayson told Lyra, picking up the golden arrow once more, “banging open.” And then he took off running. Lyra made it to the entry to the wing in time to see another form blur past.
“Jameson?” Grayson glanced back at Alisa. “Did we know he was coming home?”
“We did not.”
Grayson bolted after Jameson, and Lyra bolted after Grayson, because she had the sense that this could get ugly fast, but when Jameson finally came to a stop in a room filled with model trains, it was like he didn’t even see Grayson—or Lyra.
“Where’s Xander?” Grayson asked, but it was like Jameson couldn’t hear them, either, as he pushed a button on the side of one of the trains, and one of the room’s four walls split in two, revealing yet another hidden chamber.
Lyra walked up to the edge of it but didn’t step inside. Crowding Jameson Hawthorne did not seem like a good idea right now. The chamber gleamed, and it took Lyra a moment to realize that the walls were made of—
“Obsidian,” Jameson said—to himself, not to them. “And white agate.”
“Jamie.” Grayson edged past Lyra and latched a hand on to his brother’s shoulder. “Why are you here? What’s going on? What do you know?”
Lyra thought about Grayson punching that wall, over and over again, and then she thought about Jameson taking a swing at Grayson back on Hawthorne Island.
This had the potential to go very badly.
Lyra laid a hand gently on Grayson’s shoulder. Don’t push him, Grayson. Everything about Jameson’s posture, the way he moved, the way he held himself—all of it told Lyra that it would be unwise for Grayson to keep touching his brother.
Grayson allowed his hand to drop. “You can’t ignore me forever, Jamie,” he said, but Jameson seemed determined to try.
“Three diamonds lets you out,” Jameson said—again, to himself. “Three. There are always three. If not diamonds, then something else. Obsidian and white agate.”
“What are you looking for?” Grayson asked. “Are you okay? Jamie—did something happen?”
No response, so Lyra gave it a try. “We’re looking for a box that belonged to Alice.” The name Alice seemed to break through to Jameson, if only slightly. “Your grandfather made it for her, for Alice to keep her secrets in.”
“Still saying the name, I see.” Jameson’s voice wasn’t sharp, not exactly.
He drew a ragged breath. “She told me to come back here—Alice.” Jameson’s voice went soft in volume but not in tone.
His tone matched that ragged breath. “She wrote me a message: Go home, dear boy. I thought it was a warning at first, but then…”
Jameson pressed a palm flat against the chamber wall, then applied pressure, and a small square of obsidian rotated to white agate.
“Echoes,” Jameson murmured. “From her games to the old man’s, from his to ours—Avery’s and mine.
We used card suits in the Grandest Game.
He used them many times over the years.”
Hearing Jameson say Avery’s name had an obvious effect on Grayson, one that had Lyra sliding in next to him as Jameson frenetically tried out different patterns on the chamber wall.
Three clubs—more or less. There are always three.
Three spades.
Three hearts.
Nothing happened. Echoes, Lyra thought. Across games and generations. And then she looked to Grayson’s hand—to Alice’s golden arrow. Lyra thought about the piano in the greenhouse, about the secret garden and the plaque on the courtyard wall. Our love was never black-and-white…
“Red,” Lyra said. Her voice came out almost as rough as Jameson’s, and when he didn’t seem to hear her, she reached out and laid a hand on his shoulder, even though she’d pulled Grayson back from doing the same, even though she knew that Jameson blamed her—for Avery.
Wild eyes met hers, and Lyra held Jameson Hawthorne’s gaze. “Red,” she said again. “The letters. R-E-D.”
Jameson tried it—two versions of it, three, four, and the fourth did it. A portion of the chamber floor popped up—no bigger than twelve inches by twelve inches.
A hidden compartment, Lyra registered. Plenty big to hide a box.
Jameson crouched and removed the floor panel. Beneath it, there was another, nearly solid panel with a small, oddly shaped opening, barely more than a slit. “A key,” Jameson gritted out. “I need—not a key.”
Lyra’s mind was already on Tobias Hawthorne’s keys when Jameson said the word not, and before she’d had a chance to even consider the shape of that slot, Grayson was already handing Jameson the golden arrow.
She thought back to Hawthorne Island, to a sword that had been the key to a hidden compartment. Jameson inserted the arrow.
Echoes. Layers. Clue to clue to clue. The next thing Lyra knew, Jameson had a wooden box in his hands. Hand-carved, from the looks of it. Lyra expected another lock on the box, but there wasn’t one.
Without so much as a glance at either Lyra or Grayson, Jameson gingerly opened the lid.
Inside the box, there was a single piece of paper with writing on it, front and back.
Alice’s secrets. Lyra’s heart pounded in her throat as Jameson took the paper in his hand and began to read. Eventually he flipped the paper from front to back and read some more. When he was done, Jameson folded the page in half and went to stick it in his pocket.
Grayson grabbed Jameson’s wrist halfway there.
“Try me, Jamie.” Grayson might have been willing to be blamed, to be hated—but he clearly wasn’t willing to let Jameson do this alone. “We’ve been looking for that box.”
Jameson slowly angled his eyes—borderline animal eyes—up at Grayson.
Very ugly, Lyra thought. Very fast. But this time, she knew better than to pull Grayson back. “Take a swing at him, and you’ll be fighting me, too,” Lyra informed Jameson instead. “I sure hope you don’t have any problems hitting girls.”
Jameson blinked.
Grayson’s free hand went for that page of Alice’s. “Try. Me. Jamie.”
After a long, tense moment, Jameson let loose of it. The second Grayson had the sheet, he angled it so that Lyra could read it, too. It took her a moment to realize that the page didn’t contain a list of secrets. It bore a poem, a handwritten poem.
Once Lyra started reading, she could barely even breathe. Alice’s words banished every other thought in her mind.
My story is that of a mother and a wife.
What more could any woman want from life?
What power could possibly hold a candle to
that of me and them and you?
What wars won, what plans on high
could hold a candle to my prize?
I am adored.
A smiling lady to your lord.
My mission is not thine.
And the hand so subtly guiding yours—
Well, it’s hardly likely to be mine.
I could have stayed.
I could have won.
But our story was not done.
And so I scorned the throne
and left it to another,
Knowing scorn can break one’s bones
The way it did my mother’s.
There are men who need to fall,
I knew from a young age.
At four, I started leaving windows open
And smiling through my rage.
But our love, my love, was not one meant to fade.
I made my choice, then I made you
And at times you saw me,
Your match, your wife.
This is the story of my life,
A love so pure and true and right
I chose to lose the final fight.
But sometimes I think at night
Of the hand that holds the knife.
Some kings truly need to fall
While others just need guided.
Our gloved hands,
The Gilded Blade,
And none of us divided.
∞ ∞ ∞