The Grandest Game

by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

knowledge was currency, and ignorance was weakness.

“Trying to write trick questions backfires if the person taking the test knows how to look for tricks.”

Grayson Hawthorne bled power.

Can’t tip your hand if you don’t know the cards,

And his smile was nothing short of dangerous.

Lyra was hit with the sudden sense that this Rohan could be whoever he wanted to be.

The combined effect of his outfit and his hair should have screamed country club or finance bro, but a nose that had been broken one time too many whispered bar fight instead.

Grayson Hawthorne looked, in Lyra’s opinion, exactly like he sounded, like weaponized perfection: inhuman, in control, without mercy.

Jameson looked from Grayson to Lyra and smiled a smile that could only be described as wicked. “This should be fun.”

You cannot Escape the reality of tomorrow by evading it today. —Abraham Lincoln

Grayson Hawthorne said no like an absolute, like it didn’t matter if he was giving an order or informing you that you were wrong—either way, all you needed to understand was no.

“I’m not wheezing.” Gigi gave herself a little pep talk. “I’m breathing in an almost musical manner.”

“I’m Gigi,” Gigi said. “And I try.” “You do, don’t you?” Odette replied. “Try. The world just loves women who try.” Odette caught Gigi’s gaze and held it. “Unless and until we try too hard.”

Savannah climbed the way she walked—with purpose. With fury,

Let’s see how far you’ll go to protect what you perceive as yours.

far enough into his twenties that Gigi didn’t feel quite so compelled to assess his jawline.

she looked to the western horizon, where the setting sun dyed the ocean in shades of stormy purple and a deep, burnt orange.

Conceited vest, darkened soul.

Lyra wasn’t sure what she’d expected from the Grandest Game—but not this. She hadn’t expected it to feel like this. Like magic.

“Sometimes,” Avery said, “in the games that matter most, the only way to really play is to live.”

“I wasn’t staring,” Lyra said. “Let me guess,” Rohan murmured. “You were looking at the walls.” The walls? For the first time, Lyra looked to the perimeter of the Great Room. Wood panels lined the walls. A raised design in the wood was reminiscent of Art Deco, but the longer Lyra stared at it, the more the design called to mind a maze.

“This is the part where I humbly admit to being the boldest and most dashing Hawthorne—or, at a minimum, the least wary of explosions and social rejection—and ask if I can have this dance.”

There was still space between them, a respectable amount of space. Too much—and not nearly enough.

“And you don’t get to act like I’m a threat because of some list made by your soulless, life-ruining billionaire grandfather. I am here because”—Lyra almost said because I was invited, but she thought about what that invitation had said, and the words burned true—“because I deserve this.”

Beside Avery, Jameson was looking at her like she was the sun and the moon and the stars and eternity, all rolled into one.

“Don’t,” Savannah ordered. Which one of them was the intended recipient of that order was anyone’s guess.

He was playing with her—a bit too much, perhaps. But Rohan did love to play.

He put no particular emphasis on the words, but there was an intensity to him that could not be ignored.

There were downsides to having the kind of memory where you saw nothing in your mind’s eye and felt everything.

Since they were stuck as a team until sunrise, Gigi figured it was better to poke at the elephants in the room than to ignore them.

“I forgive you, by the way, and you should find that very frightening.”

She probably could have stopped there. But alas, moderation was not one of Gigi’s strong suits; see also: caffeine.

There were, after all, only seven player rooms. It would have been difficult but not

“And he only has the advantage until we take it back.”

“If I second-guess one sacrifice, suddenly, there might be lines I’m not willing to cross.”

There was no hesitation in Savannah Grayson. It was like she was incapable of it.

There was something about the overly formal, self-important way Grayson said Ms. Kane that made Lyra briefly entertain the idea of throwing something at him.

She knew already how Grayson’s touch could linger, how its ghost refused to be exorcised.

“You, Ms. Kane,” Odette said, coming to stand in front of Lyra, “are a dancer.” The old woman turned her attention to Grayson. “And you are very much a Hawthorne.”

“I am, to use the clinical term, A Lot.

Rohan had a knack for zeroing in on possibilities. Beauty. Danger. Skin. Touch. Cruel. Fast. Fair. Burned. Gone. Those were the words with emotional resonance. The rest was noise.

“Some people can make mistakes, make amends, and move on.” Grayson kept right on looking at the scoreboard. “And some of us live with each and every mistake we make carved into us, into hollow places we don’t know how to fill.”

Brains aren’t built to be neutral. When you get stuck in a loop of confirmation biases and stale ideas, you have to take the bull by the horns and jar the hamster off the wheel.”

“Save that wolfish smile for someone else. Save the quips and the charm and, while you’re at it, save the rest.”

From the sound of his voice alone, she could tell he’d turned to face her, and somehow, her body’s sense for his was so strong that she knew exactly where his hand was in the darkness.

“Riddles deliberately lead you down paths that take you further and further from the right answer. They lie with the truth and rely on the tendency of the human mind to seek confirmation of that which we already believe.”

Something forever just out of reach.

“When you answer a riddle correctly,” Grayson said, “everything makes perfect sense. If an answer fails to reveal the trick in the question but nonetheless seems plausible on its face, that answer is likely a decoy, meant to distract you and anchor your mind.”

If you have to contort an answer to make it fit, it was never the right answer to begin with.”