“That’s why you fixated on Gigi,” Slate practically growled. “She’s Grayson’s sister.” Slate gave Emily what Jameson wouldn’t—but Emily didn’t wantSlate’sattention. “And why,” Mattias Slater continued, “when you had us captive during the Grandest Game, you kept asking Gigi aboutLyra.”
“Grayson grieved me.” Emily pushed Grayson’s hair out of his face. “I know he did.”
And you couldn’t stand the idea of him moving on, Jameson thought.
“You want to say something.” Emily turned back toward him. Jameson stared right through her. “I know you’re in there somewhere, Jamie. Isn’t there anything you’d like to ask me? How I did it? Why I did it?”
Jameson didn’t need to knowwhyorhow. He didn’t even need to know how much longer he’d have to ignore Emily before she lost her composure and made a real move, the kind that could open her up to a counterattack.
Jameson didn’t need anything fromher.
“This is getting pathetic,” Slate said. “Give it up.”
“Pathetic? An Ascendant of the Gilded Blade?” Emily kept her voice light as she whirled on him. “I’m not the one in chains,” she said. “And if I’m so pathetic,Mattias, how did I threaten Eve into shooting you? She didn’t want to, you know. Everyone has a limit, and you were hers—until you weren’t. Pity she’s not a better shot.”
“Bitch.”
“Me or her?” Emily said innocently. “I honestly didn’t think she’d have it in her. I had a mind to choose my own sister after Gigi turned me down, but Eve was right there, and when my lookalike niece shot you? When she pulled that trigger?” Emily turned back toward Jameson. “That’s when I knew she’d be fully capable of putting Avery down for me, too.”
Jameson bit back a roar.Ignore her. Ignore her. Ignore her.
“There are years when all of the Candidates survive the Crucible,” Emily murmured, “and years when they don’t.”
Everything in Jameson wanted to fight, to thrash, to pull at his chains and try to lock a hand around Emily’s throat, but he didn’t. He went elsewhere in his mind—to a rooftop in Paris, to the edge of the ocean in Tahiti.
To you, Heiress.Jameson closed his eyes and willed himself deeper and deeper into memory, into daydreams, going somewhere nothing could touch him. Time still passed, but he didn’t feel it, didn’t evenhearEmily. It was like she truly didn’t exist—and then, suddenly, she was pouring something down his throat.
“If you won’t talk to me, Jameson,” she whispered, “you won’t talk at all.”
Chapter 90
JAMESON
Jamie.” Grayson’s voice pulled Jameson from darkness—not all the way but enough for Jameson to realize that Slate’s manacles were empty and Emily was standing right in front of Grayson, pulling at his chains, like she was frantic.
Pretending to be Eve, Jameson realized.
“I’m going to get you out of here,” Emily-as-Eve promised, the consummate actress.Don’t let her fool you, Gray.Jameson couldn’t move, couldn’t lift his head, couldn’t manage a single word.Look at her.
“This group,” Emily said hoarsely. “It isn’t what I thought. The Crucible—it isn’t what I thought.”
Jameson tried to catch his brother’s eyes, but he couldn’t make his own focus, couldn’t do more than make out the fuzzy edges of Grayson’s body.
“Where’s Avery?” Grayson demanded.
Est unus ex nobis. Nos defendat eius.Even in chains, Grayson knew what mattered. Jameson managed to get his lips to part, but he couldn’t make a sound, not a single damn sound.
If you won’t talk to me, Emily had whispered,you won’t talk at all.
“I don’t know where Avery is,” Emily professed. “I don’t even know if she’s still alive.”
Look at me, Gray. Look at me, so I can warn you.Jamesonhadto warn him—his brother, who had come back for him, for Avery, because she was one of them and had been almost from the start.
“You’re lying,” Grayson accused.
That’s right. She’s lying. And she isn’t Eve.
“I’m not a monster,” Emily said, doing Eve’s wounded, weaponized vulnerability to a T. “I never have been. You just see what you want to see when you look at me.”