The Inheritance Games (The Inheritance Games #1)(37)

“In a first edition of Faust?” Jameson snorted. I had no idea how much money this book was worth, or how much of its value had been squandered with that one little circle on the page—but I knew in my bones that we were onto something.

“Where,” I read the word out loud. Neither brother provided any commentary, so I flipped another page and then another. It was fifty or more before I hit another circled word.

“A…” I kept turning the pages. The circled words were coming quicker now, sometimes in pairs. “There is…”

Jameson grabbed a pen off a nearby shelf. He didn’t have any paper, so he started writing the words on the back of his left hand. “Keep going.”

I did. “A again…” I said. “There is again.” I was almost to the end of the book. “Way,” I said finally. I turned the pages more slowly now. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Finally, I looked up “That’s it.”

I closed the book. Jameson held his hand up in front of his body, and I stepped closer to get a better look. I brought my hand to his, reading the words he’d written there. Where. A. There is. A. There is. Way.

What were we supposed to do with that?

“Change the order of the words?” I asked. It was a common enough type of word puzzle.

Jameson’s eyes lit up. “Where there is a…”

I picked up where he’d left off. “There is a way.”

Jameson’s lips curved upward. “We’re missing a word,” he murmured. “Will. Another proverb. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.” He flicked the red acetate in his hand, back and forth, as he thought out loud. “When you look through a colored filter, lines of that color disappear. It’s one way of writing hidden messages. You layer the text in different colors. The book is written in black ink, so the acetate isn’t meant to be used on the book.” Jameson was talking faster now, the energy in his voice contagious.

Grayson spoke up from the room’s epicenter. “Hence the message in the book, directing us where to make use of the film.”

They were used to playing their grandfather’s games. They’d been trained to from the time they were young. I hadn’t, but their back-and-forth had given me just enough to connect the dots. The acetate was meant to reveal secret writing, but not in the book. Instead, the book, like the letter before it, contained a clue—in this case, a phrase with a single missing word.

Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

“What do you think the chances are,” I said slowly, turning the puzzle over in my mind, “that somewhere, there’s a copy of your grandfather’s will written in red ink?”





CHAPTER 34


I asked Alisa about the will. I half expected her to look at me like I’d lost my marbles, but the second I said the word red, her expression shifted. She informed me that a viewing of the Red Will could be arranged, but first I had to do something for her. That something ended up involving a brother-sister stylist team carting what appeared to be the entire inventory of Saks Fifth Avenue into my bedroom. The female stylist was tiny and said next to nothing.

The man was six foot six and kept up a steady stream of observations. “You can’t wear yellow, and I would encourage you to banish the words orange and cream from your vocabulary, but most every other color is an option.” The three of us were in my room now, along with Libby, thirteen racks of clothing, dozens of trays of jewelry, and what appeared to be an entire salon set up in the bathroom. “Brights, pastels, earth tones in moderation. You gravitate toward solids?”

I looked down at my current outfit: a gray T-shirt and my second-most-comfortable pair of jeans. “I like simple.”

“Simple is a lie,” the woman murmured. “But a beautiful one sometimes.”

Beside me, Libby snorted and bit back a grin. I glared at her. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” I asked darkly. Then I took in the outfit she was wearing. The dress was black, which was Libby enough, but the style would have fit right in at a country club.

I’d told Alisa not to pressure her. “You don’t have to change how you—” I started to say, but Libby cut me off.

“They bribed me. With boots.” She gestured toward the back wall, which was lined with boots, all of them leather, in shades of purple, black, and blue. Ankle-length, calf-length, even one pair of thigh-highs.

“Also,” Libby added serenely, “creepy lockets.” If a piece of jewelry looked like it might be haunted, Libby was there.

“You let them make you over in exchange for fifteen pairs of boots and some creepy lockets?” I said, feeling mildly betrayed.

“And some incredibly soft leather pants,” Libby added. “Totally worth it. I’m still me, just… fancy.” Her hair was still blue. Her nail polish was still black. And she wasn’t the one the style team was focused on now.

“We should start with the hair,” the male stylist declared beside me, eyeing my offending tresses. “Don’t you think?” he asked his sister.

There was no reply as the woman disappeared behind one of the racks. I could hear her thumbing through another, rearranging the order of the clothing.

“Thick. Not quite wavy, not quite straight. You could go either way.” This giant man looked and sounded like he should be playing tight end, not advising me on hairstyles. “No shorter than two inches below your chin, no longer than mid-back. Gentle layers wouldn’t hurt.” He glanced over at Libby. “I suggest you disown her if she opts for bangs.”