The Glass Ballerina Who Danced On Knives

Checkmate

Conan gray lyric scavenger hunt! Can't wait for found heaven and lonely dancers <33333

'Cause I've gotten tired of the games that you play When you tell me you love me then you throw me away
So cry me a river till you drown in the lake
Cause you may think you're winning but checkmate Yeah, you may think you're winning but checkmate
- Checkmate, Conan Gray (slay)

Grayson's eyes look at me in disbelief. "What did you ever have to do with Emily?"

I wave my arms "It goes on and on and on."

Avery tilts her head. "Should we start looking for 1018 anywhere?"

He swallows. "Before we do that, I'm sorry."

"For what?" I cock an eyebrow, my eyes are welling up as he admits.

"For how I reacted. You were trusting me, you
needed compassion, love and emotion. Then I cut you off like tags on my clothing."

"I just... don't know what to say, Gray."

Tension hangs in the air.

Avery is the first to speak. "Why don't we split up, look for ten and eighteen?"

"Sure," I reply, pulling out my phone and creating a group chat with Avery and Grayson. "Text if you find anything."

We all head in separate directions and my first stop is my room to change.

I peel off my necklace, take out the earrings, and unclamp my bracelet. Stripping off my dress and heels, I realize I don't have time to shower, so I grab my miceller water and Resi-due to take down my hair and makeup. I throw on a black top, jeans and Louis Vittion belt with a striped sweater (Outfit 6) and head out to the extensive gardens behind the house.

The fountain that greets me outside the blue drawing room's door has eighteen stone leaves along the topmost basin. I step up and see ten delicate stone roses in the bowl. That can't be a coincidence.

I push the bowl aside and see a compartment in the stone pillar that connects the basins. Reaching in, I pull out an octagon of stained glass with string threaded through a small hole.

Top of the clock
Meet me at high
Tell the late day hello
Wish the morning good-bye A twist and a flip
What do you see?
Take them two at a time And come find me

What could that possibly mean?
"Congratulations, you really are the winner." Jameson comes into view, holding a crystal liquor cup.

"Something tells me this isn't the first one you've seen." No matter how much I love games, I'm not falling into another stupid trap.

"'Cause I'm the King!" The words come out in a drunken jumble.

"Real sweet, but I wish you were sober"

"I told you tulip, I'm not playing anymore."

I laugh, "You may think you're winning but, checkmate."

"I can't be winning if I'm not playing."

"You never learn, do you? You can't just quit when it's tough. That's what you used to do in chess, but I'd already beat you."

"Uh oh," a mischievous smile crosses his face, "this is making me wanna spill my guts to you." He laughs manically then spins on his heel and walks away.

"You maniac! Wanna play it that way? Have fun wrecking granddaddy's Benz." I shout at him, to no avail.

With a sigh, I pull out my phone to text a pic to the group chat when two messages from Avery come in. The first is a picture of an identical stained glass octagon and the second simply reads : Meet in hallway?

Gray responds instantly Of course.

It's around one am, and we're all emotionally and physically exhausted so we promise to return to the matter next morning, but establish one thing: this game is not over.

It's not the end of the story.

In the morning, the three of us reconvene at the base of the staircase

We sit down, staring at the words,working through the rhyme line by line, turning the two pieces of stained glass over in our hands.

"Top of the clock." I remark, mostly at an attempt to break the silence.

"What's at the top?" Avery asks a clarifying question.

"Twelve." Grayson replies, lThe number at the top of a clock is twelve."

Like dominos, that sets off a chain reaction in our minds. "Meet me at high..."

High what?

"Noon." Avery answers. That was a guess, but the
next two lines seem to confirm it. Noon happened in the middle of the day, when you said good-bye to the morning and hello to what came after.

We moved on to the second half of the riddle... and got nothing.

A twist and a flip
What do you see?
Take them two at a time And come find me

Avery focuses on the stained glass. "Was I supposed to twist it? Flip it? Did we need to assemble all of the pieces somehow?"

"You look like you swallowed a squirrel." Xander plops down on the stairs next to us.

"Your brothers don't want anything to do with me," Avery says quietly.

"I'm here, am I not?" Grayson speaks, and I chime in.

"I won't be at the exit until we solve this."

"I guess my kind gesture of sending you all to the Black Wood together exploded." Xander makes a face. "To be fair, most of my gestures end up exploding. We are the dumb, the wild, the free."

That startles a laugh out of me. "You really are just as psycho as me, just as sick inside the head."

"The game's not over," Avery tells him. He reads the inscription. "I found it last night, after the Black Wood." She holds up the stained glass. "What do you make of this?"

"Now, where," Xander says thoughtfully, "have I seen something that looks like that?"

A.N: Sorry this one is late, took me a while to hide the lyrics.
Good luck!
<3!
Sky(lar)