I made my choice, too, Lyra thought, and right about then, her mother recovered her voice.
“Lyra, where did you get this kind of money?”
“It’s a long story, Mom.”
“You know I love long stories, but for now, just tell me if this story of yours has a happy ending.”
“I’m okay,” Lyra said, “and I’m also not, and I’m okay with that, too. This story, my story—it isn’t over.”Theirstory wasn’t over. “I know who I am, and I know what I want, and—”
Before Lyra could finish that sentence, there was a yelp from outside. A very dignified yelp.
Lyra smiled. “Any idea where Cooper is?” she asked her parents.
“Hard to say,” her dad deadpanned.
Lyra stood and made her way toward the front door. “Would it, by any chance, still be water balloon season at Mile’s End?”
“Indeed,” her dad replied, opening the front door, “it is.”
Grayson was no longer leaning coolly against the car. He was on the move, as powerful, lethally graceful, and impressive as any soaking-wet man in an Armani suit possibly could be.
Lyra stepped out onto the porch and looked up—at Cooper’s bedroom. “Hi, Lyra!” Her brother launched two water balloons at once. Grayson dodged both, and Lyra knew instinctively that he was only wet because he’dletCooper get a couple of shots in.
That very dignified yelp had been for show.
Lyra threw her head back and laughed.Day in, day out. Ordinary moments.
“Nothing wrong with our sense of humor,” her dad said, nudging Lyra with his elbow as a dripping Grayson made his way toward the porch. Cooper was either out of water balloons or biding his time.
“Sir,” Grayson greeted Lyra’s dad, and then he slid his eyes to Lyra and smiled, a real, truly devastating Grayson Hawthorne smile. “I might need to borrow a shirt.”
And here comes the actual last water balloon, Lyra thought, but she was a good enough big sister not to give away Cooper’s sneak attack. Somehow, though, she wasn’t surprised when Grayson raised a hand at the last second to catch it.
And then, he arched a brow at Lyra.
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Drop it, Hawthorne.”
He cocked his arm slightly backward. “Is that an order… or a suggestion?”
“My revenge,” Lyra warned him, “will be epic.”
Grayson smirked. “Epic,” he told Lyra, “sounds just about right.”
Chapter 103
JAMESON
Jameson watched as Avery picked Alice’s poem up off the mantel of her fireplace,thatfireplace, the one Jameson had flashed back to stepping out of so many times. And now, he had Avery back, and he could have just stood there, taking in the sight of her for hours. She was wearing loose sweatpants and one of his T-shirts, her hair still damp from the shower.
She was beautiful by every damn definition of the word.
“Still nothing from Jackson?” Jameson asked.
“Not yet,” Avery replied, setting the poem back on the mantel for the third time that evening. “The man hates phones, but he agreed not to shoot the one I had Alisa send him. If Eve shows up there, he’ll call.”
Sometimes, Jameson’s grandmother had said,a phoenix needs to burn. And after a phoenix burned, it rose again. The question wasn’t just if Eve was out there, it wasn’t just if she’d survived, if the body that had been released to her horrible mother-in-name-only wasEmily’s.
The question was what it would mean if that were true. The question was whether Eve was really thephoenixAlice had been talkingabout—or if Alice had been referring to the Gilded Blade, to burning it down so that something else might rise from its ashes.