“Nothing. I wasnothingto Calla.”
“You were something much worse.” Helena’s gaze went back to that family portrait of her husband and her four young sons. “You were four when your mother came here, demanding money from me. Had things been different, I might have made a one-time payment to secure you,but by that point, Calla was here. She was a girl at long last. I could not risk alienating my grandson Orion by airing his secrets. So I shut the Landry woman down and sent you both away.”
Helena had suggested to Gigi before that she would not have forgiven any of her sons or grandsons for having an illegitimate daughter.But a son?
“No.” Knox’s voice was beyond guttural.
Knox is Orion’s son?Gigi’s brain couldn’t keep up, and the muscles in her stomach wouldn’t stop twisting as she thought about the way that Orion Thorp had spoken to Knox, the way the man had backhanded him.
“When I told Calla the truth of her parentage and yours,” Helena continued, barely even looking at Knox, “she agreed it would be best for her to leave. She understood that what the two of you had—it was wrong. Calla did not have Orion’s blood, and you did not have his name, but the two of you,it could not be. So I arranged for her disappearance and sent her to train. Had she merelyleft, the idea of coming back might have proven too tempting. But amissinggirl can’t afford to be found, not if any part of herwantsto disappear. I told myself that Calla’s broken heart would mend. Broken hearts become scarred ones every day. If anything, I thought it would push her to become something new, to throw herself into her training and later, the Crucible. I thought that would give her an advantage.” Helena drew a labored breath. “It seems I was wrong.”
“Calla isn’tdead,” Knox roared. “And we weren’t—I’m not—”
“Reality is what it is.” Helena had no mercy for Knox, no sympathy for him. She reached back and unclasped the chain around her neck, then turned to hold the fleur-de-lis necklace out to Gigi.
“There is more than one way,” Helena said, lifting her chin, “to continue a family line. History tells the tale for a reason. A man who reads that tale, a man whose level of knowledge merits more thanwatchingis quite unfortunate indeed. But a woman? Women may bewarned. Some take that warning and stop looking, while it urges others tokeeplooking, to go deeper. Those very few who earn themselves answers, theyare considered worthy heirs for family lines that might otherwise have none.”
Gigi could barely even process what Helena was saying, could barely process what she was being told—and offered.
“All those sons,” Helena said roughly. “All those grandsons and great-grandsons, and my only true heir, gone.”
Gigi understood now why Helena had told her as much as she had. Gigi had refused to stop looking. She’d come back here, armed with information about the Crucible. And the Thorp line of the Gilded Blade had no heir. And Knox—Knox wasa Thorp, and Helena had turned her back on him when he was just a child.
Haven’t you ever wanted, Gigi could hear the Woman in Red saying—not Calla, it wasn’t Calla—more?
Helena’s hand shook slightly. “Take the necklace, Ms. Grayson.”
“I don’t want it,” Gigi said, and this time, she meant it. She pressed herself into Knox’s side, willing herself to feel his pain so he didn’t have to feel it alone.
Thatmattered.
Helena Thorp stared at Gigi for the longest time. “Then know that I cannot be held responsible for what happens to you after the Crucible concludes, once there is a new Judge.” Helena dropped the fleur-de-lis necklace. “Perhaps a more brutal Judge.”
Chapter 57
LYRA
This time, Lyra woke before Grayson did, and she kept watch as he slept in wild grass, in a hidden garden they’d found the night before. Beneath the greenhouse, they’d discovered a tunnel, a nearly mile-long tunnel that had dead-ended in a staircase that had led them back up into a small courtyard, hidden away on a remote corner of the estate, its very presence masked by thorny brush on all sides. There was a garden in that courtyard, one that had clearly gone untended for years.
Possibly decades.
Lyra and Grayson had spent hours and hours searching through dense vegetation and digging through dirt, and they’d come away with nothing—until they’d turned their attention to the courtyard wall and cleared away enough vines to reveal a plaque underneath, which read:
OUR LOVE WAS NEVER BLACK-AND-WHITE
LIKE AN APPLE, IT WAS ALWAYS RED
Black. White. Red.They’d continued looking, and eventually, they’d found a way to make that wall move, and behind it, they’d found a small room.
A small white room, covered in years’ worth of dust, its walls an intricate and complicated maze. Lyra and Grayson had spent all night solving the puzzle of the maze, but all their hard work had won them was passage back into the courtyard, where Grayson had removed his suit jacket, hung it on the branch of a gnarled tree, and driven his fists into the courtyard wall again and again, until Lyra had put herself between him and the wall.
He’d stopped, and Lyra had brought his battered knuckles to her lips, and eventually, they’d slept.
Keeping watch over him now, Lyra wasn’t sure how many more dead ends either of them could take.
Grayson’s jacket still hung on the branch. His shirt was unbuttoned, and all Lyra could think, looking at him, marking the subtle rise and fall of his chest, was that Grayson Hawthorne had let her pull him back from the edge.
He’d let go, and so had she, and Lyra’s mother had been right. Sometimes, when youknewthe other person, it really was that simple.