“I am losing my patience,” Grayson told Rohan ominously, “with you.”
“And I would be so deeply wounded by that were it not for the more pressing issue that John Oren and Alisa Ortega and probably your brother Nash are all going to haveopinionson how we proceed next.” Rohan let that sink in. “They will want us towaitfor them. They will be convinced that they should be calling the shots, even though we are on my turf, not theirs, even though there is no telling what the cost ofwaitingmight be.”
Rohan had read enough in those letters to know there were many ways for a Candidate tofail. He let his eyes come to rest on Jameson’s. “Don’t make me tell you about themostbrutal parts.”
Multiple muscles in Jameson’s jaw visibly tensed. “Nora clearly believed there was a way to take down the Gilded Blade from inside the Crucible.”
“Not just the Ascendants.” Grayson’s voice was admirably calm. “The Kyrie. The Blade’s connection to the web. All of it.”
Rohan thought again about Vantage, about the isle on which it had been built—the cliffs, the cave system that Rohan could only conclude was likely far larger than he’d realized. Still, given what hehadseen, what he’d been allowed to see, the topography of it all…
A plan began to form in Rohan’s mind. Grayson’s phone rang—and so did Jameson’s. Neither one of them answered.Good.Rohan suspected they’d only need a bit more of a push to turn those phones off.
“Anyone who goes in might not come out.” Rohan took his time looking from Hawthorne to Hawthorne. “Do any of you really want to wait for reinforcements and put more people on the chopping block? Or perhaps you think we should call in the authorities or summon up an army of mercenaries and risk wholesale failure and the lives of all three Candidates? Or do nothing at all and wait to see who lives and who dies?”
Xander’s phone rang. He didn’t answer it. “Don’t even think about leaving me out of this, you two,” Xander told Grayson and Jameson. “But Nash…”
“We keep Nash out of it,” Jameson agreed. “If we go in and we’re caught, if a new Judge ascends, a more brutal Judge—Toby and Gray and I have all already been marked as possible threats. We’re already on the Blade’s radar, and the duchess said there are limits to whatever immunities Avery bargained for. But, Xander, you—”
“Don’t, Jamie.” Xander Hawthorne straightened to his full height, even with Rohan’s own. “Whatever we’re about to do, it doesn’t touch Nash. It doesn’t touch Lib or Max or Lyra or anyone else, but I am not letting you two go in without me.”
“We could make you stay,” Grayson told his brother.
“You could try,” Xander replied.
Rohan didn’t know what it was like to have a family, to have brothers, but just standing there, looking from Hawthorne to Hawthorne, he could almost imagine it.
One by one, Grayson, Jameson, Xander, and even Toby all turned off their phones.
“We’ll need a way in,” Jameson told Rohan. “Unnoticed. We’ll need an exit strategy, a backup plan, schematics—and to be armed to the teeth.”
Rohan smiled, his most charming, most terrifying smile. “Leave all that to me.”
Chapter 79
ROHAN
Vantage had been named for its view—or rather, its viewpoint. The manor was built into a high, steep cliff that was separated from the mainland by a long, narrow isthmus barren but for rock and wild grass. Approach Vantage by land in the daytime, and youwouldbe seen.
Even now, with the shield of night, the superior option was approaching by sea. Clad in black and armed to the teeth, Rohan and his Hawthorne companions pulled their boat silently ashore into a blind spot beneath the cliff. They’d silenced their outboard motor more than a mile out. Their ship—a very fast, very stealthy ship Rohan had been able to conjure very nearly out of thin air as Proprietor—was waiting farther out, manned by a crew who knew nothing and would do nothing unless enough time passed for certain fail-safes to come into play.
Rohan could not say the same for theotherreinforcements that were doubtlessly incoming. At a minimum, John Oren would have boarded a plane directly after realizing where they were headed, and Rohan was well aware that all three Hawthorne brothers had turned their phones back on long enough to send what were surely emotional texts, just before they’d headed for shore.
Suffice to say, in one form or another, the cavalrywascoming. Rohan’s priority was to find and secure Savannahbeforesaid cavalry arrived to muck things up. He swiftly cut across the beach from blind spot to blind spot, Hawthornes on his heels. Even in the dark, Rohan left nothing to chance, retrieving his penlight only once they were safely ensconced in the first cave.
Light in one hand and a knife in the other, Rohan pressed forward into the darkness. In other circumstances, he might have been holding a gun instead of a knife, but they’d eschewed firearms because of the explosive material that lined their vests.
Go big, as the Americans liked to say,or go home.
“If we encounter the Watcher…” Toby Hawthorne’s whisper echoed off the stone. “Leave her to me.”
The first cave turned up nothing, and they backtracked. Deep into the second, Rohan heard the sound of running water. He turned off his penlight, and as one, his companions did the same. The five of them moved in silent tandem, farther and farther into the cave.
Jameson fell in directly behind Rohan, close enough to speak directly into his ear. “The statue on the beach. The one you integrated into the Game. Do you remember it?”
“A woman wearing three necklaces,” Rohan murmured back, “and dozens of bracelets. And then there was the hidden inscription.”
“Inscription?” Jameson’s whisper grew just a bit louder as they drew closer to the sound of the water.Falling water.