tricks of time ― grayson hawthorne [the inheritance games]

030. TRUE NORTH

42 minutes till I get into that chopper. 

39 minutes till I get into that chopper. 

The hands on the clock seemed like they were set in stone. It felt like every 10 minutes, the hand would move over a bit. 

"I agree," Xander told me, even though I hadn't said anything for him to agree with. "This party sucks. The socialite-to-scone ratio is pretty much unforgivable."

Any other day, I would've laughed. But I wasn't in the mood for scone jokes right now. A thousand thoughts were roaring through my head. Jameson says he still hasn't accepted the fact that I have the Inheritance. Grayson claims that he killed Emily. Celeste is using me to punish them both. And somehow, Emily fits perfectly into all of this. 

"I'm out of here," I finally told Xander.

"You can't leave yet!"

I gave him a look. "Why not?"

"Because..." Xander waggled an eyebrow. "They just opened up the dance floor. You want to give the press something to talk about, don't you?" One dance. That was all I was giving Alisa—and the photographers- before I got the hell out of here.

"Okay. You're struggling. Pretend I'm the most fascinating person you've ever met," Xander advised as he escorted me onto the dance floor for a waltz.

He held a hand out for mine, then curved his other arm around my back. "Here, I'll help: Every year on my birthday, from the time I was seven until I was twelve, my grandfather gave me money to invest, and I spent it all on cryptocurrency because I am a genius and not at all because I thought cryptocurrency sounded kind of cool." He spun me once.

"I sold my holdings before my grandfather died for almost a hundred million dollars."

I stared at him. "You what?"

"See?" he told me. "Fascinating." Xander kept right on dancing, but he looked down. "Not even my brothers know."

"What did your brothers invest in?" I asked. All this time, I'd been assuming that they'd been cut off with nothing. Nash had told me about Tobias Hawthorne's birthday tradition, but I hadn't thought twice about their "investments."

"No idea," Xander said jauntily. "We weren't allowed to discuss it."

We danced on, the photographers snapping their shots. Xander brought his face very close to mine and I flinched backwards but Xander quickly brought me back to my original position. 

"The press is going to think we're dating," I whisper-hiss, my mind still spinning at the revelations of earlier.

:As it so happens," Xander replied archly, "I excel at fake dating."

Suddenly I'm intrigued. "Who exactly did you fake date?" I asked.

Xander looked past me to Thea. "I am a human Rube Goldberg machine," he said. "I do simple things in complicated ways." He paused. "It was Emily's idea for Thea and me to date. Em was, shall we say, persistent. She didn't know that Thea was already with someone."

"Thea's with someone?" I say in shock. "Someone would want to be with Thea?" 

"And you agreed to put on a show?" I asked incredulously.

"I repeat: I am a human Rube Goldberg machine." His voice softened. "And I didn't do it for Thea."

Then for who? It took me a moment to put it together. Xander had mentioned fake datingtwice before: once with respect to Thea, and once when I'd asked him about Rebecca. "Thea and Rebecca?" I said.