We dropped back down into the room, one at a time. Jameson laid his hand flat against the door and pushed it inward. The cell beyond was empty, except for a small wooden box. On the box, there were letters—golden letters etched into golden tiles that looked like they’d come out of the world’s most expensive game of Scrabble.
The letters on the box spelled out my name: AVERY KYLIE GRAMBS.
There were four blank tiles, one before my first name, one after my last, and two separating the names from each other. After everything that had just happened—Jameson’s confession, then Xander’s—it seemed wrong that this should come down to me.
Why me? This game might have been designed to bring Jameson and Grayson back together, to bring secrets to the surface, to bleed out poison before it turned to rot—but somehow, for some reason, it ended with me.
“Looks like it’s your rodeo, kid.” Nash nudged me to the box.
Swallowing, I knelt. I tried to open the box, but it was locked. There was no spot for a key, no combination pad.
Above me, Jameson spoke. “The letters, Heiress.”
He just couldn’t help himself. Even after everything, he couldn’t stop playing the game.
I reached tentatively for the A in Avery. It came off the box. One by one, I peeled off the other letters and the blank tiles, and I realized this was the trigger for the lock. I stared at the pieces, nineteen of them total. My name. That clearly wasn’t the combination to unlock the box. So what is?
Grayson dropped down beside me. He organized the letters, vowels first, consonants in alphabetical order.
“It’s an anagram,” Nash commented. “Rearrange the letters.”
My gut response was that my name was just my name, not an anagram of anything, but my brain was already sifting through the possibilities.
Avery was easy to turn into words, two of them, just by adding the space that had been in front of the name to split it. I placed the tiles back on the top of the box, pushing each one into place with a click.
A very…
I put another space after very. That left two blank tiles and all the letters from my middle and last names.
Kylie Grambs, arranged according to Grayson’s method, read: A, E, I, B, G, K, L, M, R, S, Y.
Big. Balm. Bale. I started pulling words out, seeing what each of them left me with, and then I saw it.
All at once, I saw it.
“You have got to be kidding me,” I whispered.
“What?” Jameson was 100 percent in this now, whether he wanted to be or not. He knelt next to Grayson and me as I put the letters up, one by one.
Avery Kylie Grambs—the name I’d been given the day I was born, the name that Tobias Hawthorne had programmed into the bowling alley and the pinball machine and who knew how many other places in the House— became, reordered, A very risky gamble.
“He kept saying that,” Xander murmured. “That no matter what he planned, it might not work. That it was…”
“A very risky gamble,” Grayson finished, his gaze making its way to me.
My name? I tried to process that. First my birthday, now my name. Was that it? Was that why? How had Tobias Hawthorne even found me?
I snapped the last blank tile into place, and the box’s lock disengaged. The lid popped open. Inside, there were five envelopes, one with each of our names.
I watched as the boys opened and read theirs. Nash swore under his breath. Grayson stared at his. Jameson let out a broken little laugh. Xander shoved his into his pocket.
I turned my attention from the four of them to my envelope. The last letter Tobias Hawthorne had sent to me had explained nothing. Opening this one, I expected clarity. How did you find me? Why tell me you’re sorry? What were you sorry for?
There was no paper inside my envelope, no letter. The only thing it contained was a single packet of sugar.
