Rohan sometimes thought of his mind as a labyrinth and himself as the creature who lived at the center. Down the different paths, there were, among other things, repositories where he kept information. There was one for details that seemed insignificant but that he committed to memory nonetheless; another for obvious leverage, waiting only for a use; and a third for information that Rohan had flagged as significant but whose significance had yet to be revealed.
It was this last corridor that Rohan found himself visiting most often. Seeing the pattern beneath the surface, sensing the hidden, making connections—that was his lifeblood. And Savannah Grayson had just given him something to work with: She needed this.
That was what Rohan had heard in her voice: need on par with his own to claim the Devil’s Mercy. And that made Savannah a riddle every bit as much as the words now staring back at them from a fresh layer of metal wall.
Why would an eighteen-year-old with a multi-million-dollar trust fund
need to win the Grandest Game?
“Eighty-eight locks.” Savannah read the words on the wall aloud. “Wait, that’s not right. At least the answer is black and white.”
“This is a game of riddles now.” Rohan passed the sword from his right hand to his left. The riddle on the wall. And you. “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.”
What is your Mercy, Savvy? What drives you?
“There’s a twist,” Savannah summarized curtly.
“More than one, I imagine.” Rohan found that he could imagine a great deal about Savannah Grayson, but he left the desire to do so in the labyrinth, alongside his questions about her motives, and turned his attention to the matter more immediately at hand.
“A riddle, a puzzle, a Hawthorne game,” he quoted. “Once more with feeling: They’re all the same.” Rohan gave Savannah a chance, albeit a minimal one, to reply, and then he continued, “I’d take the bit about three paths diverging to mean that, while this game may have started by presenting all three teams with identical puzzles, from this point on, we’re on different paths. Different challenges. A crown. A scepter. An empty throne.”
“Three clues,” Savannah said, “to who-knows-what. This riddle?”
“Time will tell.” Rohan looked from her to the words on the wall. “Time always tells, Savvy.”
She’d made it clear that she didn’t want his empathy, which was good, given how often it was in short supply. But Savannah had his curiosity now instead, and most at the Devil’s Mercy would have agreed: That was far, far worse.
“Can we just focus on the riddle?” Savannah said.
Rohan’s smile was more wolfish than ever. “Oh, I am.” You are the riddle, Savannah Grayson. That solving her would tell him how best to use her was a bonus. His curiosity had to be sated either way. But for now…
There was an old-fashioned rotary phone on the wall opposite the riddle, which hadn’t moved at all as the underlying layers had shifted. Rohan had to admire the mechanic genius of the chamber—and the brevity of their latest challenge.
88 LOCKS
WAIT, THAT’S NOT RIGHT
AT LEAST THE ANSWER IS BLACK AND WHITE
Rohan began to loop around the chamber in a slow circle, concentrating on the middle line of the riddle: Wait, that’s not right.
Not right could, of course, mean wrong. To be right was to be correct in a factual sense, but right could also mean righteous or honorable, as in a person knowing the difference between right and wrong.
Then again, not right could easily mean left. To righten something was to straighten it.
If something was your right, you were entitled to it.
As Rohan continued his second circuit around the chamber, Savannah spoke. “What precisely is the antecedent of the word that in the second line?”
Wait, that’s not right. Rohan rolled those words and her query around in his mind, a series of questions rising to the surface.
What wasn’t right? How so?
And what did a person like Savannah Grayson need with twenty-six million dollars?
