“You knew Alice was alive.” Grayson stared down at Toby. “How?”
“Three times my dead mother came to me,” Toby said quietly, “back when the world thought I was dead, too. First time, I was in bad shape. My mother saved my sorry life and tasked me with leading my father on a merry chase all around the world. I agreed for reasons of my own, but it obviously served her purposes as well.”
“And the second time?” Grayson was clearly beyond niceties and segues.
“The night Avery was born.” Toby closed his eyes. “I went to Hannah.”
The way Toby said the nameHannah—Lyra couldn’t even describe it. There wasn’t a single word in the English language thatcoulddescribe a tone like that. Toby Hawthorne saidHannahlike the act of saying it healed something in him at the exact same time it tore him apart.
“I was going to stay with her,” Toby continued, his voice low. “Permanently. I was going to be with Hannah, be a father to her baby. Then my mother showed up and told me that by saving my life, by revealing herself to me, she’d broken a very important rule. As long as I stayed dead, that didn’t matter, but if I tried to claim a life with Hannah and Avery, I’d be a liability, and we’d all be in danger.”
“And you believed her.” Grayson did not phrase that as a question.
“It wasn’t a coincidence that I was there the night Avery was born. I’d stayed away from Hannah for years, and thensomeonelured me back to her side.” Toby reached into his bag and withdrew a postcard from inside the book he’d taken off the shelf. Lyra stopped breathing the second she saw the image on the postcard.A dark forest. A gothic castle. A girl in a white cloak.
Lyra stared at that cloak.
“My mother took one look at this postcard, and it was clear she knew who had sent it to me.” Anger and despair rolled off Toby in waves, aged to perfection like wine. “But all she said about the person who’d sent it was that it could have been worse.”
A white cloak, Lyra thought, staring at the image on the postcard.Not a black one.
Toby brought his index finger to lightly touch the figure in white. “My mother wore a red cloak the night Avery was born. Years later, the third and final time I saw the ghost of Alice Hawthorne, she wore white.”
Red.Lyra stopped breathing.And later, white.
Grayson stepped into Lyra’s peripheral vision, his hand dropping from her neck. “Lyra, the night your father died—”
Lyra didn’t even wait for him to finish. “Alice wore black.”
Toby reached into his bag and withdrew a phone. He pulled up an obituary, complete with photo.Alice Hawthorne.“You’re sure?” Toby pressed. “That it was her?”
Even though Lyra wasn’t able to summon up a single mental image of the woman in black, even though her brain was incapable of visualizing anything, ever, her bodyknew. Just looking at that photograph, Lyra could hear Alice’s voice.
You should not be here. But who is to say that you were?
“I’m sure.” Lyra swallowed and made the obvious leap. “Red, black, white. Watcher, Hand, Judge. The roles aren’t permanent. There’s a progression.”
Lyra did the math.Twenty years ago, on the night Avery was born, Alice wore red.Lyra was a year younger than Avery, and she’d comeface-to-face with Alice on her own fourth birthday.Fifteen years ago, Alice wore black.
“Toby.” Lyra’s lips and throat felt far too dry. “The last time you saw your mother, when she wore white—how long ago was it? What did she say?”
“Was it before the old man died?” Grayson stared at and into his uncle. “Or after?”
“After… but not by much.” Toby stared at the chess pieces on the board. “My mother came to me when the news about Avery’s inheritance broke. She warned me again to stay away—for as long as I could.” Toby’s voice was like quiet thunder, a deep rumble just barely controlled. “She also told meeverything happens for a reason.”
There was a beat of silence, and then Grayson spoke up. “Whose reason?”
Toby stood. “Exactly.”
“You think it could have been Alice’s doing?” Grayson looked from his uncle to the white queen on the chess board. “The old man’s will? Avery inheriting?”
“I think that the last time I saw Hannah, Avery was almost six.” Toby closed his eyes again, visibly willing the memory to sweep him away. “Hannahknewmy mother was alive. She told me my mother had revealed herself to extend her an offer when Avery was a toddler.”
An offer.Lyra cut her gaze toward Grayson, wondering if he was thinking about what Gigi had told them, about the warning the duchess had given her.Asks may be answered, invitations declined.Gigi had been told that if she ever saw the Watcher—or anyone like her—again, she could sayno. Regardless of how the question was framed, regardless of what pressure was brought to bear, she could decline.
Decline what, exactly?
“What kind of offer?” Grayson’s focus was every bit as intense as his uncle’s.