Lyra went straight for the burned side of the island—and the ruins of the house where the fire had started all those years ago. As she stared at what was left, an eerie feeling settled over her body. There were parts of the old mansion that had burned to the ground and parts where its tattered frame still stood, stripped to the bones by the flames. The floors were blackened, the ceilings nonexistent. A stone fireplace still stood, its base overgrown with plants.
Leaves crunched beneath Lyra’s feet as she crossed the threshold into the ruins. All around her, whips of green had grown through cracks in the foundation, latching themselves around chunks of concrete. The ground was uneven. There were no remnants of furniture or belongings—just the leaves, the first few to turn color and fall in an unusually warm autumn.
For a full minute, Lyra took it all in, looking for anything that might qualify as a hint or an object to be used in the game. Seeing nothing, she began walking the perimeter of the ruins, giving her body a visceral sense of their size. Later, she wouldn’t be able to call to mind a single image, but her body would remember the slight wind coming off the ocean, the cracks in the ground, the exact number of steps she’d taken in each direction.
After she’d made her way around, Lyra walked the same path a second time, eyes closed, willing her body to sense the world around her. She made a full circuit, then turned into the wind, toward the back of the house.
Toward the ocean.
Eyes still closed, Lyra paced forward, lifting her hand when she passed by the stone fireplace. Her fingers trailed along its surface—and she felt something in the stone. Writing.
Lyra opened her eyes. The letters were small, the carving shallow. It would have been so easy to miss. She dug her fingers into the grooves as she read, feeling the letters.
You cannot Escape the reality of tomorrow by evading it today. — Abraham Lincoln
That had to have been a hint of some sort, but the words felt oddly like a warning: There was no escaping now.
Lyra spent the next ten minutes running her fingers over the rest of the fireplace, looking for more, but there was nothing. Closing her eyes again, she resumed walking. As she passed like a ghost through what had, at one point, been an exterior wall, she lifted her chin. The wind was stronger without even the skeleton of a house to protect her.
She stepped forward again—and a hand locked around her arm.
Lyra’s eyes flew open. Grayson Hawthorne stared back at her. Where had he come from? There was nothing painful about the way he held her arm, but there was nothing particularly gentle about his grip, either.
The two of them were standing far too close.
“You are aware that there is a cliff here?” Grayson didn’t let go of her arm, his tone making obvious his belief that she’d somehow failed to realize how near she was to the edge of what probably used to be an expansive patio with a spectacular view.
“Well aware.” Lyra looked down at his hand on her arm, and he dropped it, as suddenly as if her skin had scalded his fingers through her shirt. “Going forward,” Lyra said tersely, “you should probably just assume that I know what I’m doing. And while you’re at it, assume that you should keep your hands to yourself.”
“My apologies.” Grayson Hawthorne did not sound sorry. “Your eyes were closed.”
“I hadn’t noticed,” Lyra said in a scathing deadpan.
Grayson gave her a look. “Going forward”—he echoed her own words back at her—“if you intend to make your recklessness my problem, you should expect that problem to be solved.”
He spoke like someone used to making all the rules—his own and
everyone else’s.
“I can take care of myself.” Lyra brushed past him, back into the ruins, away from the cliff.
Just when she thought he would let her go, Grayson spoke. “I know you.”
Lyra stopped walking. Something about the way he said the word know ripped through her. “Yeah, asshole. We’ve met. Helicopter? Literally less than an hour ago?”
“No.” 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.
“Yes.” Lyra didn’t mean to turn back toward him, didn’t intend to lock her eyes on to his, but once the two of them were caught in a staring contest, she refused to look away first.
Grayson’s silvery stare never wavered. “I know you. Your voice.” The word got caught in his throat. “I recognize your voice.”
Lyra hadn’t considered the possibility that he might recognize anything about her. They’d spoken only three times, a year and a half ago, for less than three minutes in total. She’d never given him her name, and the calls were made from a disposable phone.
“You must be mistaken.” Lyra was the first to look away. She turned and walked off. Again.
“I am rarely, if ever, mistaken,” Grayson said, using a tone designed to halt people in their tracks. But Lyra kept moving. “You called me.” Grayson emphasized both the first and last words, pointedly. You. Me.
And you told me to stop calling. Lyra swallowed those words. “So what if I did?” She managed not to turn back this time, but it didn’t matter because, moments later, Grayson was in front of her, blocking her path.
She hadn’t even heard him move.
Lyra swallowed. “You’re in my way.”
Grayson looked at her as if he were peering into a pool of dark water, searching for something hidden beneath the surface. She was a mystery, and he was determined to solve it. A flicker of emotion crossed his pale eyes, and for a brief moment, Grayson Hawthorne seemed almost human.
Then he stepped abruptly to the side, clearing Lyra’s path. There was something gallant about the motion, a match for the finely tailored black suit he wore like a second skin.
Lyra hadn’t asked for his gallantry. “Stay out of my way,” she said, stalking past him.
Grayson called after her, countering her order with an ironclad command of his own: “Stay away from the cliffs.”
