The chain didn’t feel very sturdy, but it held his weight. The muscles in Jameson’s arms tightened and rippled as he climbed. Pain meant nothing. His bruises and battered ribs meant nothing. Just a few more feet.
Down below, Simon Johnstone-Jameson, Viscount Branford, still held his secret. Four words. An H. The word is. The letters v and e.
Jameson made it to the top. The final box—silver, antique, elaborately made—was attached to the chain with wire. Shifting his weight to his left hand, Jameson began pulling at the wires with his right. Eventually, the muscles in his arm began to burn. The wire bit into his fingertips, but Jameson pulled harder.
Even when his grip on the chain started to slip, even when the wire cut at his fingers and his right hand became slick with blood, he still kept at it. And finally, he ripped the box loose. “Heiress.” He looked back down over his shoulder, at the ground below. “Catch.”
He dropped the silver chest, and she caught it.
With slick hands and aching muscles, Jameson began to climb back down. He made it halfway—maybe a little more than that—and then just dropped. He landed in a crouch, his legs absorbing the shock, his entire body screaming.
And then, he turned to Avery and reclaimed the chest. She held out the key, but before he could take it, Zella spoke.
“I’m going to need that,” the duchess said, not specifying whether she was talking about the box or the key. Both. That was what Jameson’s gut said as Zella strolled across the room to stand toe-to-toe with Avery.
“The viscount here might not have been able to, in good conscience, make a deal for the final key,” Zella said. “But I am not so burdened.” There wasn’t any audible triumph in her tone—but there was something else, something deeper. “Branford doesn’t have your secret, Jameson. I do.” She tugged a flattened, folded piece of parchment out of the top of her dress. “My apologies,” she told Branford. “I made a little switch on our way here.”
Branford stared at her. Hard. “That’s not possible.”
The duchess gave a little shrug. “I happen to specialize in impossible.” She was the only person who’d ever successfully broken into the Devil’s
Mercy, and she’d talked her way into membership thereafter. Jameson had known from their second meeting: The duchess was a woman who saw things, one who played the long game.
She chose her competition. Jameson looked at Zella, really looked at her. “Have you read my secret?”
“I’m about to,” she replied. “Out loud. If you want to spare your heiress from hearing it, you’ll tell her to give me the last key. Otherwise, any danger that comes from this little bit of forbidden knowledge… well, I can only assume you’d like to protect Avery here from that.”
Jameson looked to Avery. He saw nothing in the room but Avery. “Give the key to Zella,” he said softly.
There were some things he wouldn’t risk, not even to win.
“You have three seconds,” Zella warned. She began unfolding the parchment. “Three…”
“Do it,” Jameson commanded. “The Game—it doesn’t even matter anymore.” Lie.
“Two…”
“Just do it, Heiress.”
Avery mouthed two words: I can’t. And the next thing Jameson knew, she’d leapt toward Zella, her hand latching around the parchment. Zella fought. Jameson watched as his Heiress took the duchess to the ground.
“Enough!” Rohan’s voice boomed through the air.
Zella froze, but Avery didn’t. She pulled herself to her feet, the parchment in her hand, and held it to the flame of the closest candle.
“I said enough!” The Factotum told her.
Avery didn’t back down. She never backed down. And by the time
Rohan had made it to her, the parchment was ashes. Jameson’s secret was ashes. You didn’t look at it, Heiress. You didn’t read it. You could have, but you didn’t.
Zella stood, grace incarnate, and smiled. “Correct me if I’m wrong,” she told Rohan, “but wasn’t there a rule about violence of any kind leading to immediate expulsion from the Game?” Her eyes lit on the key still in Avery’s possession. “And wouldn’t expulsion from the Game mean that any key held by that player is surrendered?”
There was a flash of something in Rohan’s eyes—not anger, not exactly
—but a moment later, it was gone. He turned toward Avery with the rogue’s smile firmly in place. “Indeed,” he said in reply to Zella’s question, “it would.”
