And constellations.
“Inside Hawthorne House,” Gigi continued, “there are whiteboards full of information about the history of the Gilded Blade and random mentions of mythology and constellations and details about theritualof the Crucible.” Gigi took a breath—not a deep one, just a breath. “It’s too late for Calla,” she said, “but it’s not too late for Avery.” Gigi glanced at Slate. “Or Eve.”
Gigi looked back to Brady. “And maybe you don’t care about that rightnow. That’s fine. I’m not even going to try to convince you that you should, but you owe me for the way you treated me, the way you used me.”
It didn’t hurt anymore, thinking about that. It didn’t even sting.
“For the way you would have kept right on using me,” Gigi continued, “you owe me. Just take a look. That’s all I’m asking.”
Brady stared at Gigi, then looked back at Knox and said, “One look.”
Chapter 69
LYRA
Hawthorne House without Grayson should have felt wrong to Lyra. The place was basically a palace, and Lyra was the furthest thing from a princess, but in the oddest way, at the oddest times, the mansion reminded her of Mile’s End, like this House with a capitalH, however massive and ostentatious, had eyes and ears and a beating heart all its own.
Besides, it was hard to feel out of place when Max and Libby had been sticking to her like glue all day, like they were three of a kind. Over and over again, Lyra returned to the Great Room, and they went with her. It always ended the same way, with Lyra fixing her gaze on that picture of her father and uncle andtheirmother. Each time Lyra looked at it, Xander’s voice rang in her mind.Is there any chance at all thatyourgrandmother or possibly great-grandmother was one of the other Candidates with Alice in 1967?
Either that, or maybe her family’s connection to the Gilded Blade went further back.
Either that, or the connection wasn’t to the Gilded Blade at all but toAlice.
“I’m gonna go ahead and call it,” Max told Lyra. “Too much timespent communing with whiteboards cheese-grates the soul. Which flavor of distraction would you prefer?”
“And/or cupcake,” Libby added.
“Which flavor of distraction and/or cupcake would you prefer?” Max amended.
Before Lyra could so much as attempt to decline the offers, Gigi’s voice echoed in from the foyer. “If I were you, I’d start with either Lucy or Clyde.”
Incoming, Lyra thought.
“Which one do you think she’s talking to,” Max said, “Muscles or Eyebrows of Doom?”
Gigi rounded the corner. “Neither!” She was followed by Slate, Alisa, Knox, Brady Daniels, and Oren, in that order.
What the hell is Brady doing here?Lyra thought. Oren tracked the scholar’s every move as Brady approached the whiteboards and scanned all four, one after another, with mind-boggling speed.
“Constellations,” Brady murmured. “And mythology.” He nodded to Jameson’s writing under the section labeledPrague. “May I?”
Max tossed him a marker. “Knock yourself out, mysterious speed-reader.” As Brady uncapped the marker with one hand, Max lowered her voice.“Who the fox is this guy?”
Lyra kept her answer brief: “A player from the Grandest Game.”
Brady got to work. Next toPyramus and Thisbe, he wrote the wordCLOAK. Next toOrpheus and Eurydice:UNDERWORLDandLYRE.
“Lyre.” Lyra said the word out loud.
“Orpheus was known for his golden lyre,” Brady explained, “a gift from Apollo. It was by playing a song on that instrument that he convinced Hades to allow him a chance to bring Eurydice back to life. When Orpheus failed at that task, was forced to live without his wife, and eventually died, still brokenhearted, it’s said the golden lyre was cast up into the heavens and became a constellation.”
Lyra didn’t have to ask which one. “Lyra.”
Brady crossed to the board with Alice’s poem—and the dots. “Lyra,” he confirmed, “also known as the Lyre of Orpheus. It was vultur cadensto the Romans—‘the falling vulture’—and in Welsh, it’s known as Talyn Arthur, ‘Arthur’s harp.’ Its brightest star is Vega, which is part of theSummer Triangle”—Brady wrote those words on the board—“formed by the brightest stars in the constellations Cygnus, Aquila, and Lyra respectively, all of them visible in the northern hemisphere from summer through autumn and even a bit into winter.”
“A triangle,” Gigi pointed out, “hasthreesides.”
There are always three Ascendants. There are always three Candidates. And then there’s the fourth part of the Gilded Blade.Lyra tried not to dwell on the Kyrie and turned her focus on Brady instead. “During the Grandest Game, you told me the constellation Lyra was visible in the southern hemisphere, northern sky.”