Forcing his eyes to take in every detail of the room anew, Jameson noted again that the only decorative flourish was on the ceiling: the blue and gold detailing, an elaborate X with squares positioned to look like diamonds on either side. Inside the diamonds, shields. Inside the shields, symbols. Jameson made out a Greek letter or two, a flower, a lion, a sword.
Jameson cycled through key phrases that Rohan had dropped, and nothing registered—until he stopped looking at the details of the ceiling above and started looking at the big picture.
The X.
“As in X marks the spot?” Jameson tossed out.
“Marks,” Avery repeated. “That’s what Rohan said we were playing for.
The mark.”
Directly beneath the X was the table. Jameson was on his back on the floor beneath it in a heartbeat. The underside of the table was smooth, plain, except in the corners. And in those corners, Jameson found round disks, each slightly smaller than a coaster.
“Not disks,” Avery said beside him, lifting the word from his mind, her own racing along the exact same path. “Wheels. Do you remember the last thing Rohan said—the very last thing?”
Jameson thought back. “The Game starts when you hear the bells. Until then, I suggest you all let the wheels turn a bit…”
And acquaint yourself with the competition. Jameson didn’t say that last bit out loud, because it was beside the point.
“The wheels.” Jameson met Avery’s eyes. “Turn them.”
She took one end of the table, and he took the other. The wheels didn’t want to turn, but if you pushed them upward and turned at the same time, the resistance fell away. The wheels turned. And once all four of them had been turned—again and again until they would no longer move—a hidden compartment on the side of the table opened.
And nestled in that compartment, there was a key.
