“Why not?” Lyra said. She couldn’t help thinking about what Zara had said about Grayson being who he was. “I can take it.”
“I don’t doubt it, but on Hawthorne Island, you received a calla lily, Lyra.”
She’d found one—and that flower hadn’t been a part of the game.
“The Gilded Blade has Avery,” Grayson said, his voice downright lethal. “They have Eve. They aren’t getting you, Lyra.”
LYRA, MY LYRA.
She will come for you.
This time, Lyra didn’t let herself get bogged down in questions she didn’t have answers for. “You say that like you’re anticipating an argument,” she told Grayson.
“And you saythat,” Grayson countered, “as if you have never before in your life participated in one.”
“I’m a docile soul.”
Grayson still held the golden arrow in his right hand, but his left made its way to her neck. He gently tilted her head back just so. “My grandmother and her ilk aren’t getting anywhere near you, not ever again. That’s a promise.” His lips brushed hers—just the smallest of touches, just a moment.
And then they got back to work.
Chapter 52
LYRA
The tunnel dead-ended into a ladder. Climbing that ladder took them out into fresh air, to a path of large white stones shaped like diamonds, which led to the glass door of a greenhouse likewise made of glass and rimmed with stone. Even from a distance, Lyra could see flowers through the glass walls of the greenhouse, the kind of flowers she would have expected to find growing wild on a tropical island. When she reached the door, Grayson opened it for her.
Stepping into the greenhouse, Lyra immediately scanned her surroundings, every single bloom. “Not a single calla lily in sight,” she noted. She paced farther and farther into the greenhouse until she came to the end of the aisle. There, in a large open space surrounded by flowers on all sides, was a grand piano.
Before Lyra could so much as process that, her phone rang. She checked out the caller ID, then braced herself and answered. “Hi, Mom.”
“I’ve been getting calls, Lyra. Lots and lots of calls.”
“From the press?” Lyra guessed.
“The press,” Lyra’s mom confirmed. “And everyone I know. Fortunately, I am a master of deflection and/or not answering my phone.And on a mostly-but-not-entirely unrelated note, your brother is now obsessed with magic tricks. And Grayson Hawthorne.”
Grayson, as in the reason Lyra’s mother was getting all of those calls. “It was good seeing Cooper,” Lyra told her mom, the muscles in her throat tightening slightly. “And you.”
“Am I allowed to worry?” Lyra’s mom asked. “About… all of this?”
“Within reason.”
“When have you ever known me to be unreasonable, Lyra Catalina?”
Lyra.Her mom pronounced Lyra’s name the right way, but that didn’t stop Lyra’s mind from starting the cycle of churning thoughts and memories up all over again.
“Mom, can I ask you something?” Lyra tried to keep her voice light.
“Okay, now I reallyamworried. And yes. Always. You know that. Ask away.”
“Where did you get my name?”
Her mother was quiet for a few seconds. “Tomás named you.”
“Did he pronounce my nameLie-ra?”
“Where is this coming from, baby?”