CHAPTER 78 ROHAN
ROHAN
Rohan felt the pieces falling into place, one by one.
There was an estate, a very old, very large estate in Scotland called Vantage.
The Mercy did not own it, but it had for a time, because Rohan had been instructed to obtain it shortly after Vantage had fallen into the possession of one Ian Johnstone-Jameson, an inheritance from Ian’s recently deceased mother, her family’s ancestral home.
Given what he knew now, Rohan would have wagered a great deal that the property had passed, by royal decree if necessary, to first-born daughters, until there were none.
And then, when it had finally passed to a woman who had only sons, she’d left it to her youngest, most impulsive, and least discerning child.
The very son most likely to gamble it away.
Jameson’s father.
It had been easy enough for Rohan to play Ian, to ply him with alcohol and bait him into that very specific wager.
And thus Vantage had come into the possession of the Devil’s Mercy.
And thus it had been up for grabs in a Game of Rohan’s design, though Alastair had chosen the location for that Game… and the players.
Including Katharine Payne. And the duchess.
Rohan felt the labyrinth of his mind rearranging itself just so.
Zella had given the Game to Katharine—or tried to.
At the time, Rohan had fully believed Katharine Payne was playing on behalf of Jameson’s uncle Bowen, that she was playing for blackmail material on a political rival, not for Vantage itself.
Misdirection.
Because now it very much appeared that the Gilded Blade had wanted Vantage, had wanted one of their members to openly own the place, so that none might question what they did there.
What’s hidden there. From the letters he’d read, Rohan knew the Crucible was held in subterranean chambers, seemingly countless chambers that Rohan had not found in the course of his own exploration of Vantage and the designing of his Game.
Why take the risk of sending me there at all?
Unless they were confident I would not find anything they did not want me to find.
Unless someone wanted us familiar with the lay of the land—Jameson, me, one or both.
All of this—all of it—hit Rohan in an instant, and in that instant, he was already moving to take Grayson Hawthorne’s phone and hang up on Lyra Kane.
“I am losing my patience,” Grayson told Rohan ominously, “with you.”
“And I would be so deeply wounded by that were it not for the more pressing issue that John Oren and Alisa Ortega and probably your brother Nash are all going to have opinions on how we proceed next.” Rohan let that sink in.
“They will want us to wait for them. They will be convinced that they should be calling the shots, even though we are on my turf, not theirs, even though there is no telling what the cost of waiting might be.”
Rohan had read enough in those letters to know there were many ways for a Candidate to fail. He let his eyes come to rest on Jameson’s. “Don’t make me tell you about the most brutal parts.”
Multiple muscles in Jameson’s jaw visibly tensed. “Nora clearly believed there was a way to take down the Gilded Blade from inside the Crucible.”
“Not just the Ascendants.” Grayson’s voice was admirably calm. “The Kyrie. The Blade’s connection to the web. All of it.”
Rohan thought again about Vantage, about the isle on which it had been built—the cliffs, the cave system that Rohan could only conclude was likely far larger than he’d realized. Still, given what he had seen, what he’d been allowed to see, the topography of it all…
A plan began to form in Rohan’s mind. Grayson’s phone rang—and so did Jameson’s. Neither one of them answered. Good. Rohan suspected they’d only need a bit more of a push to turn those phones off.
“Anyone who goes in might not come out.” Rohan took his time looking from Hawthorne to Hawthorne.
“Do any of you really want to wait for reinforcements and put more people on the chopping block? Or perhaps you think we should call in the authorities or summon up an army of mercenaries and risk wholesale failure and the lives of all three Candidates? Or do nothing at all and wait to see who lives and who dies?”
Xander’s phone rang. He didn’t answer it. “Don’t even think about leaving me out of this, you two,” Xander told Grayson and Jameson. “But Nash…”
“We keep Nash out of it,” Jameson agreed.
“If we go in and we’re caught, if a new Judge ascends, a more brutal Judge—Toby and Gray and I have all already been marked as possible threats.
We’re already on the Blade’s radar, and the duchess said there are limits to whatever immunities Avery bargained for. But, Xander, you—”
“Don’t, Jamie.” Xander Hawthorne straightened to his full height, even with Rohan’s own. “Whatever we’re about to do, it doesn’t touch Nash. It doesn’t touch Lib or Max or Lyra or anyone else, but I am not letting you two go in without me.”
“We could make you stay,” Grayson told his brother.
“You could try,” Xander replied.
Rohan didn’t know what it was like to have a family, to have brothers, but just standing there, looking from Hawthorne to Hawthorne, he could almost imagine it.
One by one, Grayson, Jameson, Xander, and even Toby all turned off their phones.
“We’ll need a way in,” Jameson told Rohan. “Unnoticed. We’ll need an exit strategy, a backup plan, schematics—and to be armed to the teeth.”
Rohan smiled, his most charming, most terrifying smile. “Leave all that to me.”