Chapter 71
JAMESON
The Gilded Blade has all three Candidates now.That thought and variations of it had been cycling through Jameson’s head since the moment their plane had landed, the moment Grayson had called Lyra and gotten that update.Avery. Eve. And one more—quite possibly Nora. If the Crucible didn’t start for Avery the moment she was taken, it’s underway now.
Air tasted like dirt in Jameson’s mouth. His blood felt like thorns in his veins. If Avery hadn’talreadybeen fighting her way through trials that some Candidates did not survive—
She is now.
And if Nora had succeeded at drawing the Omega’s attention, her plan—that plan that Nora had said she’dlike to thinkAvery would come through alive—it was probably gaining steam.
I am a survivor, you know.Avery’s voice came to Jameson, the way it hadn’t on the plane. He’d tried and tried to hear her, and now, finally, forty minutes into their drive to Queensbright Stables, his brain cooperated. It was already almost midday in England, hours lost to the time switch and the flight, but finally, he couldhearher.
And he could imagine himself replying,I know.
You need to be careful, the Avery in his mind warned.No matter what I negotiated for—
I know, Heiress.
In Jameson’s mind, her voice took on a wry tone.You do not excel at being careful.
“And you do.” Jameson hadn’t meant to say that out loud, but he did, just as Queensbright Stables came into view. From a distance, it looked more like a sprawling, historic university campus than a place to board thoroughbreds.
Lady Monoceros, it had turned out, had been purchased the year before, sold as part of Avery’s divestiture of large chunks of the Hawthorne fortune—sold, it had turned out, to a duke.
For his duchess, no doubt, Jameson thought—and this time, there was no reply from Avery in his mind. Steeling himself against that loss, Jameson concentrated on their current task. He gave it a ten percent chance Zella would show up while they were poking around, but Jameson Hawthorne had been playing worse odds all his life.
Charming their way into a tour of the world-class facility proved easy enough, the way most things did when your last name was Hawthorne. Convincing anyone to leave them in the vicinity of horses valued at upward of twenty million dollars apiece, however, proved almost impossible. Fortunately, Xander was a master of distraction, Grayson had a way of making people follow orders they never even realized he’d issued, and Toby had spent years beinginvisibleand slipping around unseen.
Soon enough, they were in.
Lady Monoceros was a magnificent filly, a rare white thoroughbred—fitting, given that she’d been named for the Woman in White. Jameson suspected the horse had been his grandfather’s lastlove letterto Alice. The old man had acquired—and named—Lady Monoceros not long before his death. A second horse had been acquired at the same time, as part of the same deal—Thamenold, an anagram forthe old man.
Thamenold and Lady Monoceros.
Tobias and his Alice.
Jameson and his partners in crime searched the horse’s stall first but didn’t hit paydirt until they coaxed the Lady into showing them the bottoms of her feet. Three of her four horseshoes were engraved. Jameson set aside the obvious logistical questions, such asHow many times have her shoes been changed since the old man died?andHow many spare horseshoes did he leave behindandWhat superstition convincedanyoneto continue using them this long?
None of that mattered. The only thing that mattered was the words:
ALIKE, A QUAINT SLAYER
WON’T LOVERS REVOLT NOW?
WHOLE HEART, I CAN.
Jameson knew immediately—immediately—once he saw the last line what this was.Avery Kylie Grambs, rearranged, wasa very risky gamble. Andwhole heart, I can—that was an anagram forAlice Hawthorne.
Jameson glanced at Xander. “I need a pen and something to write on.”
Xander obliged, pullingfourpens and a notebook shaped like an armadillo out of his pockets. “I live to serve.”
Jameson took one of the pens and the notebook and wrote the entire puzzle down before translating the last line. “Whole heart, I can,” he told the others. “Alice Hawthorne.”
“Jamie.” Grayson took the pen and started to work on the first line:ALIKE, A QUAINT SLAYER.As Jameson watched, Grayson pulled letters out of the phrase, scratching them out as he went to keep track.
A-Q-U-I-L…