hi friends!

oh my gosh I'm so sorry it took so long to post! I tried reading The Grandest Game to get me in the vibe for this story but the only book that actually worked was A Good Girl's Guide To Murder XD

sorry this chapter is a little shorter than the others, but I figured I couldn't wait any longer.

hope y'all still enjoy!

thank you everyone! please read and review!

peace out!

—GRAYSON—

He did not sleepwalk again for the rest of the night, perhaps because he did not sleep. All Grayson could do was lay awake in bed, staring at the ceiling and pondering his clue.

Also, he couldn't breathe.

Every time Grayson inhaled, something rattled and shook deep in his chest—so deep, in fact, that he could feel it in his back. Coughs racked his frame every minute or so, rough, wet sounds that left him spitting blood-streaked phlegm into tissues. This was not good.

It was freezing, and Grayson wrapped a blanket around his shoulders, staggering over to the bathroom and fumbling for the light switch. His fingers scrabbled against the wall for a moment, his bare feet flush against the chill floor, and then the light flicked on, throwing his face into sharp relief.

He sucked in a hoarse breath. The reflection in the bathroom mirror was pale—paler than usual, at least—and sharply boned, with shadows under his eyes and a fine stubble on his jawline. Grayson's hair had been tousled into a mane of whitish gold, and his eyes were bloodshot, capillaries stark crimson against the pale rose of the sclera.

Grayson leaned against the counter, trembling slightly, his head spinning. Something was seriously wrong with his lungs, an infection borne in the saltwater. He was no medical expert, but if he had to guess, he would have said pneumonia, or possibly tuberculosis. They were the only two illnesses he knew of that produced bloody sputum.

This was not something that could be overlooked, no matter how much Grayson might want to convince himself and everyone else that he was fine. Bloody sputum was a serious issue, and one that needed to be resolved immediately.

So Grayson took his room key and placed it in the pocket of his silk pajamas, along with his phone, and staggered ten feet down the hall to Nash's room, the blanket still wrapped around his shoulders. When he stopped in front of the door, he lifted a hand and wondered why the knock it produced wasn't louder, more firm. Grayson's whole body was weak, his knees threatening to give out and send him crashing against the door as muffled footsteps sounded from inside.

"Nash," Grayson croaked when the door opened. "I think—"

Then his knees indeed gave out, and he was being caught and pulled back from the brink of collapse for the second time in a day. Grayson mentally slapped himself, berating his fevered mind for allowing him to show that much vulnerability. Perhaps he could blame the pneumonia.

"You too, huh, kiddo?" Nash said sympathetically, and he slipped an arm under Grayson's knees, the other at his little brother's back as he lifted Grayson, holding him against his chest. "Libby's already outside. I'm takin' you two to the hospital."

"I implore you, Nash, put me down." Grayson hated how weak his voice sounded.

"I ain't lettin' you trip your way down the grand staircase," Nash scolded as they started to descend it. "You're in bad enough shape as it is—you should've just called me up and told me to come get you. You ain't walkin' by yourself, Gray, and it's just out to the boat, you'll be fine."

Grayson blew a lock of hair out of his eyes. Why must Nash be so right all the time?

He struggled to keep from curling in on himself as another spasming cough racked his body, and he heard Nash's breath hitch as his cowboy boots thumped dully against the marble. Grayson squeezed his eyes shut and willed the spasms to pass, forcing himself to stop coughing. There were many ways the old man would have punished him for doing so.

The air outside Vantage was freezing, stinging Grayson's cheeks with a fierce wind. He wanted to pull the blanket up to cover his face, but he refrained, knowing it would seem juvenile.

Libby was hunched over in the boat, which remained docked on the shore of Vantage, steel-gray water lapping at its sides. Grayson remembered the duct tape covering the hull and shuddered, not trusting the vessel to get them all the way to the mainland.

"I am not getting in that thing," he mumbled. "It'll sink, Nash, and I am not in the mood for a second immersion."

"It's our only way to the mainland," said Nash firmly. "We'll be fine, Gray, I promise."

He set his little brother down in the boat, and Grayson pulled his blanket tighter around his shoulders, struggling to keep his teeth from chattering. He squeezed his eyes shut as Nash started the boat and prayed that it wouldn't sink. That was quite possibly the most idiotic way to go, probably ever.

The engine threw up a spray of freezing water, and they were off, speeding across the ocean's choppy surface. Grayson wondered if Avery watched after them, or if she had finally gone to sleep. He hoped it was the latter; none of them had slept much even before last night.

"Do you even know where the mainland is?" Grayson rasped. "I was under the impression that you had never driven to Scotland in a boat."

"It's north," said Nash nonchalantly. "I'm absolutely certain it's north. Don't stress, Gray, we'll run into land eventually. I'll switch our cash out for pounds and get a taxi for y'all, then we'll get to the hospital and they'll fix you better than I can."

"You fix everything, rookie," said Libby, the first time she'd spoken that morning. "Everything."

Her eyes drifted closed, and Grayson arched an eyebrow, pushing past the pain in his chest to force out, "Rookie?"

Nash gave him a half-smile. "She's pretty out of it, I guess, to say that now. Thought y'all would never hear about it. Short for Westbrook, you know? Can't really nickname Nash all that well. Promise you won't tell, Gray?"

"I feel as though I should demand some sort of payment, but yes."

The mainland came into view just as Grayson finished speaking, a smudged line of dark gray on the horizon. Nash breathed a sigh of relief, turning the steering wheel towards the land. "Thought we'd never find it."

"That doesn't sound like absolutely certain," Grayson said. "You told me you were absolutely certain."

"Easy, Gray, we found it, didn't we?"

Fifteen minutes later, the speedboat was docked in a marina, and Grayson stood on the cold sidewalk in his bare feet, cursing the fact that he hadn't taken his shoes before letting Nash manhandle him down the stairs. Would they even let him into the hospital without shoes? Certainly not, and that was to say nothing of the silk pajamas. Why wouldn't the concrete just open up and swallow him already?

Nash ran up the dock to exchange cash and to call a taxi, and maybe it was Grayson's fevered brain that made the time pass so quickly, because the next thing he knew, they were pulling up to the hospital. Nash opened Grayson's door and reached out, but Grayson held up a hand. "Your fiancée, Nash. I'm alright."

He stepped out of the taxi, relieved when his legs didn't give out. The sidewalk was still cold, though, and Grayson kept the blanket wrapped around his shoulders, letting it drape down over his feet so no one could see underneath. He wasn't sure if hospitals had a no shirt no shoes no service rule, but he didn't want to take any chances.

Nash, after thanking the taxi driver profusely, carried Libby through the sliding doors, setting her down in a chair in the waiting room. Grayson left a chair between them and sat down, watching Libby's shoulders shake with fever as Nash walked up to the front desk and spoke in hushed, worried tones. "My little bro and my fiancée, see, they're not doin' good—shortness of breath and fever. I'm an EMT, did all I knew how, but I ain't gettin' anywhere. Figured I oughta bring them in."

Grayson could tell that the receptionist was completely thrown by the Southern accent, but he blinked and said in a thick Scottish brogue, "Alright, let's have ye fill out the paperwork and we'll get them seen as soon as possible. Lucky man, we've had hardly any appointments."

A vibration buzzed against Grayson's hip, and he took his phone from his pocket, glad that he had at least brought it. He clicked the notification to find a text from Avery. You're not in your room.

Hospital, he texted back. Almost passed out this morning. Nash insisted.

He looked at the text for a moment, realizing how it might sound, and typed, To clarify, Nash did not insist upon my passing out.

I assumed as much, Avery wrote. Hope it's nothing serious. Are you okay?

Yes. Better than Libby, she's here too. Did you end up getting any clues last night?

A pause as the message read delivered, then read, then typing.

Then the last notification disappeared, replaced by read until the ellipses popped up again and Avery texted no

no without a period, without capitalization. It was how Xander would have written it, a small, informal denial. That was how Grayson's younger brother liked things, always informal, always lighthearted.

But not Avery. With her, everything was serious, vital, as if she took in and treated equally every piece of information a game saw fit to give her. She was clearly lying about the clues. She'd received something, something big, or at least big enough to give them a lead.

Why was Avery still lying to him?

Clearly, she still didn't trust Grayson completely, didn't want to tell him everything. And that was alright; she should have her secrets. She had every right not to tell him things.

Somehow, though, it still hurt. It still felt like a little pang of anger and resentment and maybe sorrow inside Grayson's chest, the thought that even the girl he loved still didn't trust him like he wanted her to. Obviously, it didn't matter what he wanted; Avery's secrets were Avery's choice. But he'd thought that perhaps she felt safe enough around him to speak to him about the case.

Clearly, it was not so, and Grayson's heart twinged at the thought of everything he still hadn't told Avery.

Gray, you hypocrite.

—XANDER—

Aspiration pneumonia, his phone said. Antibiotics for both of them, but they'll be fine.

Xander was relieved that Grayson and Libby were okay, but he didn't respond to Nash's text, instead winding the red yarn around another pushpin. He was glad he'd brought a spare bulletin board—the one Ian had provided wasn't big enough for the conspiracy wall.

"Are you ever going to tell anyone else about the wine?" Max asked, brushing her fingers over the what do I say? note. "It could take you and Jamie out of the equation."

"But it could get us in trouble," Xander said. "I think it's at least a felony. I…I don't want to tell the police."

"I guess we can't anyway." Max shrugged, winding a strand of yarn around her finger. "Given that we're in Scotland. But you'd at least make yourself a little less suspicious by telling everyone here."

"What if Nash and Gray are mad?" Xander worried. "They wouldn't…I mean, they're so set on making sure we don't drink early…"

"You didn't kill Tobias Hawthorne," Max said firmly. "I think telling them is the only way to rule yourself out, at least for that clue. I don't know if anyone else has clues that make you a suspect, but you can give yourself an alibi for the wine, no matter how illegal."

Xander cracked a smile. "Can you imagine how that'd sound to the police? 'Hello, officers, hope you're having a great day, just wanted to say you can rule me out of the Hawthorne case since I was committing a totally different crime.'"

"I bet they get underage drinking all the time," said Max. "You wouldn't be the first. Plus, haven't you sworn off alcohol since then?"

"Absolutely." Xander shuddered, remembering the terrible hangover he'd had after that night. "Never again. I thought I was gonna die. Plus it was nasty."

He grabbed his phone from his bed and pulled up the text he'd received last night. "Do you wanna try and work out this riddle? I think if we both got clues, everyone else probably did too, but we should go into any conferences already knowing what this one means."

He knew that Max had noticed the change of subject, but she didn't comment on it, instead saying, "Yeah, come here," and patting the bed next to her. That was one of the things Xander loved about her—she never pushed him to say more than he wanted to. It was a rare occurrence, Xander Hawthorne not wanting to say something, but when it happened, Max didn't force her way into Xander's thoughts. In return, he did the same for her, not wanting to let her feel uncomfortable around him.

Xander flopped onto the bed next to Max, holding the phone out in front of them both. They scanned the text together, eyes flicking over the screen, and their minds started to dissect the message, breaking it down into tangents and possibilities.

one guardian in the grip of night

one man to bring the day

one game to play in black and white

one played in shades of gray

"What do you think "the grip of night" means?" Max asked. "That makes it sound like someone was asked to do something horrible, or they had a choice they didn't want to make. Or they were actually a psychopathic murderer. It's pretty vague."

"Metaphors," Xander sighed. "They always go over my head. Or I catch them and then spend way too long assigning double meanings to them and then end up more confused than before."

"Do you work with metaphors a lot?"

"Yeah, with my grandpa's games. My brothers were always better at those—I liked the riddles. My brain's built for those."

"So let's think of this as a riddle," said Max. "And don't worry about double meanings; that just means more ideas."

"Oh!' Xander gasped theatrically, turning to face Max. "What if the night is Grandpa? And the "man to bring the day" is whoever ended up killing him?"

"And your grandpa asked the guardian to do something for him," Max added. "Something the guardian didn't like. But who would the guardian even be?"

"When I think 'guardian,' I think Nash," said Xander, "but that's a subjective thing. I don't know if the riddle means someone we think of as a guardian or someone who's like, an actual physical guard."

"I guess they could be the same person," Max said tentatively. "The guardian and the man, I mean. Maybe they didn't like what they were asked to do, so they killed the old man."

"But what would he have asked them to make them that mad?" Xander wondered. "That would have to be, like, a murder-level request."

Max's voice went deathly quiet. "Do you think your grandpa asked someone you know to commit a murder?"

"I don't know," Xander said, dropping his voice too. "That seems like the only thing he could've asked to provoke someone like that. That or he asked the guardian to swear off scones forever."

"Clearly it was the scones," Max deadpanned, and Xander laughed, nudging her shoulder gently with his own. He was glad to have her, here in this unfamiliar room in the soft gray light.

She'd comforted him last night, after the texts came in. They hadn't slept, but they'd huddled together in the bed, the comforter wrapped around both their shoulders. Xander's arms had fallen asleep, but he'd hung onto Max, afraid that he would lose her if he let go. She was the only thing that had gotten him through that night.

"What about the games?" he asked. "Got any ideas there, genius?"

"That one's the most obvious," she teased, her eyes sparkling. "Black and white? That's talking about chess."

Xander saw the moment she realized it, and a spark seemed to ignite in his brain as he understood too.

"The chessboard," they said, almost in perfect unison. Max's voice was higher, little more than a breath, and Xander's was too loud, faster so that he finished early, but they knew the meaning of the clue at the same time.

"Gray has it," Xander said breathlessly at the same time that Max said, "We have to look at it."

"Gray's room," they finished, and they were out the door in the seconds following. Xander imagined how silly they must look, running down the hall—Max in her white nightgown and one of Xander's hoodies, Xander in an undershirt and boxer shorts. Nash would have laughed; Grayson would have covered his eyes and sarcastically told Xander to put some pants on. Jameson would probably strip down to his underwear as well and challenge Xander to a drinking game.

The door of Grayson's room was unlocked, and Xander turned the bolt behind them as he and Max stepped inside. He scanned the room until he spotted the bag with the clues in it, sitting innocently under the desk.

"There it is," he whispered. "Don't think we have to put gloves on, since everyone's already touched it. Let's check it out."

Max crouched beside the bag and carefully flipped it open, lifting the chessboard out. The pieces were, rather miraculously, still attached with masking tape, despite the rough journey the bag had been through.

Xander knelt next to Max, and they studied the board, searching for anything out of the ordinary. Well, anything more out of the ordinary—the impossible chess game was clearly a clue. But Xander wasn't sure why the rook was there, on B1, and why there were three little pawns—one upright, two down.

And then, suddenly, the answer—the answer to everything—came to him, and he gasped, falling backward onto his behind with his hands clapped over his mouth.

"What?" cried Max. "Xan, what happened? What is it?"

"I know who the murderer is," said Xander, his voice trembling a lot more than he would like. "I'll tell you, but we have to keep it a secret. We can never tell anyone, Max, okay? We can't—say—anything."

"Text it to me," Max said. "We'll go back to your room and get the burner phones. I promise, Xan, I won't tell anyone. Not anyone here, not even the police."

She slid the chessboard back into the bag, and they traipsed back to Xander's room, footsteps soft against the carpet. Once they were inside, the door locked, Xander took his burner phone from the desk drawer and slowly tapped out a word.

He saw the panic, the shock, but Max set the phone on the bed and held out her arms, and Xander let her fold him into her embrace.

They sat there together, holding onto each other, and Xander silently vowed to keep the secret for as long as he lived. No one could find out about this—no one could find out that he knew who had killed Tobias Hawthorne.

He knew he was right.

He just didn't know why.

—AVERY—

Vantage seemed impossibly big, with everyone holed up in their rooms and the vast entrance hall perfectly silent. All Avery could hear was muffled coughing from Nash's room as she passed—Libby was presumably in there with him—and the softest of rattling breaths from behind Grayson's door. She hoped they were both all right, but she didn't feel ready to talk to them just yet. Or anyone else, for that matter.

Avery descended the grand staircase, the quartz cold under her feet. She stepped onto the floor of the entrance hall, every soft footstep and barely audible breath echoing inexplicably in the vastness.

She heard hushed voices and melted into the curve of the staircase, looking up through the shadows at the mezzanine. Xander and Max were hurrying along the hall, looking pale and worried, and as Avery watched, they slipped through the double doors onto the balcony.

Her suspicions about Xander from the night before flew suddenly back into her head, and before she could think twice about it, Avery was going back up the stairs, keeping her steps light. Now might be one of her only chances to search the rooms of her suspects.

The door to Xander's room was unlocked, and Avery slipped inside, locking it behind her. Faint, cloudy light streamed through the sheer curtains, illuminating the chaos Xander had already created.

Including the conspiracy wall.

Avery moved towards the bulletin board, staring dumbfoundedly at it. About thirty scraps of paper—photos, clippings, sticky notes—were pinned to one large bulletin board and a separate, smaller one, strings of red yarn wound around the pushpins. Some of the notes were copied clues, some seemingly random thoughts in Xander's uppercase scrawl. His handwriting, which Avery hadn't seen often, was neater than she would have thought, only he shaped his letters in a way that confused her—the As had no feet and were shaped like triangles, while the horizontal lines on all the Es didn't seem to be connected to their vertical counterparts. The Vs and the Us were virtually indistinguishable, and Avery could only tell them apart when she'd unconsciously memorized the ciphers Xander was copying down.

Her picture on the board was connected to a printed-out headline that read The Hawthorne Scandal: Teenage Billionaire Suspected of Foul Play. A strand of yarn connected her photo to one of the letter, with a piece of masking tape reading STOLE affixed to the string.

So this was Xander's way of keeping track of his information: instead of keeping it neatly filed in his head, like Avery, he laid it all out in a kind of organized chaos, making connections where most people wouldn't see any. The youngest Hawthorne's mind was something Avery wasn't sure she'd ever understand.

But was it an innocently chaotic mind, or that of a killer?

Avery pulled out her phone and took a picture of the conspiracy wall, capturing it in the sharpest focus she could get. She left it and started pulling open desk drawers, looking for anything suspicious. She wouldn't put it past Xander to hide vital clues amidst the mess that was his room.

The drawers turned up nothing but Xander's hacking equipment—tiny, needle-nosed pliers, minute screwdrivers that Avery knew anyone but Xander would fumble with, a metal-tipped soldering iron. All things that could be used to fabricate clues, hack into phones and security cameras; in other words, carry out and cover up a crime.

Avery mentally shook herself. She didn't want to classify each and every tiny detail as evidence, and yet—what if she missed something? What if she overlooked a clue, just because she didn't want to believe that someone was capable of murder, and disregarded their evidence?

The bed was next. Avery flung aside the comforter and gasped.

Sitting on the navy blue sheet were two phones, two old, cracked pieces of junk. Clearly not Xander's normal phone; his was an iPhone 15.

These were burner phones.

And judging by what Avery had seen on the mezzanine, one of them belonged to Max.

So they were working together. They both had a burner phone—they had to be communicating outside of their normal devices, clearly about something they didn't want anyone else to know about. Avery would have bet all of Tobias Hawthorne's fortune that it was the case.

She picked up one of the phones and turned it on, then swiped upward, wondering if it would simply open. But it was locked, and when she tried it, so was the other.

Of course Xander would take the proper precautions. He didn't have much common sense at times, but when it really mattered, he would keep all of his information under lock and key.

Avery set the phones back down on the bed and pulled the comforter back over them, then made her way back through the maze of the scattered contents of Xander's suitcase. She had everything she needed.

It pained her to do it, but she thought it might be time to try another accusation.