The Hawthorne Legacy

Avery runs into Nash, who asks if she’s seen Grayson. Avery tells Nash she doesn’t know where Grayson is and has a flashback to Grayson telling her: “I will always protect you. […] But this…us…It can’t happen, Avery” (7). Nash tells Avery that Libby and Alisa Ortega, Avery’s lawyer, are looking for Avery. Avery hints at a potential romance between Nash and Libby, thinking, “I didn’t know what Libby and Nash Hawthorne were” (7). She also reveals that Alisa is Nash’s ex-fiancée.

Avery heads to Tobias’s old office to look for clues. She opens a secret compartment in the desk (which she previously discovered in The Inheritance Games) and goes through the contents: photos of her and Toby/Harry playing chess in the park and her birth certificate. She notes: “My mother’s signature was neat, my father’s an odd mix of cursive and print” (8). The birth certificate is dated 10/18—Avery’s birthday and the day that Emily Laughlin died. Avery explains that both Grayson and Jameson loved a girl named Emily Laughlin, and her death caused a rift between them. Now, in the hunt for Toby/Harry, Avery is being used to bring them back together.

Alisa and Libby find Avery in the office. Part of Avery’s inheritance includes a football team, and Alisa wants Avery to go to the game and sit in the owner’s box. The Hawthorne family has been under the microscope since Tobias Hawthorne left his estate to Avery, an apparent stranger, and Alisa is intent on keeping up appearances. She tells Avery, “This is a Cinderella story, not a scandal—and that means that you need to play Cinderella” (9).

Avery goes to the football game, preparing mentally to play her part, reminding herself, “This was a Cinderella story, and I was the star” (13). In a crowd of reporters, Avery spies her father, Ricky Grambs. Ricky has never been in Avery’s life in a meaningful way, but as soon as he discovered her newfound fortune, he came out of the woodwork, wanting money. Avery ignores him. As Avery proceeds to the owner’s box, she runs into Grayson, who asks if Ricky will be a problem. Avery insists she can protect herself, even as she recalls Grayson’s promise to protect her.

Avery plays her part in the owner’s box but is uncomfortable: “I managed not to gawk at a pop star, a former vice president, and a tech giant” (17). Grayson helps Avery escape the crowd, accompanying her to an empty room on an upper floor. Avery reveals to Grayson that Toby is alive and explains her connection to him as “Harry.” Jameson interrupts their conversation. The three are talking when Avery hears fireworks; she flashes back to when she was shot at in The Inheritance Games and falls to the floor in a panic. Grayson and Jameson reassure her.

The next day at school, Avery runs into Xander and asks him what he knows about Toby. Xander gives a cryptic response. Their conversation is interrupted by Thea Hawthorne-Calligaris, the daughter of Toby’s sister Zara, and Rebecca “Bex” Laughlin, the sister of the deceased Emily Laughlin and granddaughter of the Laughlins, the elderly couple that manages Hawthorne House. Xander, Thea, and Bex are planning a memorial fundraiser for Emily’s birthday that Friday.

Avery isn’t yet aware that Xander also knows what she, Grayson, and Jameson know—that Toby is alive. Xander learned this in the epilogue of The Inheritance Games when he placed the final letter he received from Tobias in water, revealing a hidden message: “Find Tobias Hawthorne II.” Thea and Rebecca were with Xander when he made this discovery. Xander, Thea, and Bex have now teamed up to try to find Toby.

After someone vandalizes Avery’s locker at school, her security head, John Oren (“Oren”), assigns a new security detail, Eli, to shadow Avery at all times. Avery’s conversation with Oren occurs in Hawthorne House’s security center, which provides CCTV footage of the mansion. As Avery views the screens, she sees Jameson and Xander headed toward the walled-off wing of the house where Toby used to live.

Avery goes to Toby’s wing, where Xander and Jameson are preparing to break down the wall separating it from the rest of the mansion. Xander reveals the secret message that Tobias left him about finding Tobias Hawthorne II. Avery and Jameson are surprised to learn that Tobias knew that Toby was alive. The three use a sledgehammer to break down the wall of Toby’s bricked-off wing.

In Toby’s old room, Avery, Jameson, and Xander find a cipher disk for cracking coded messages—and a poem: “I was angry with my friend. I told my wrath, my wrath did end. I was angry with my foe: I told it not, my wrath did grow” (39). The poem is an excerpt from “A Poison Tree” by William Blake. Xander summarizes: “The author’s hidden wrath grows into a tree, the tree bears fruit, the fruit is poisoned, and the enemy—who doesn’t know they are enemies—eats the fruit” and dies (40). Avery, Jameson, and Xander are interrupted by the groundskeeper Mr. Laughlin. He angrily orders them to leave.

Mrs. Laughlin is angry with Avery, telling her: “You should be ashamed of yourself. Playing with an old woman’s feelings like that” (44). The Laughlins know that Avery told Pearl O’Day, or “Nan,” (Tobias’s mother-in-law, who still lives in Hawthorne House)—the “old woman” in question—that Toby is still alive [in The Inheritance Games]—and they think she’s lying.

Avery goes to school accompanied by her new bodyguard, Eli. Thea approaches her, saying, “We know all about the new game” (46). They want to participate. Avery is aware that Thea and Rebecca have a history and that they’d split up in the wake of Emily’s death. Thea tells Avery: “You don’t know what Emily’s death did to her. If she wants to help Xander with this? I’m going to help her. And I just thought that you might want to know that we know about you-know-who [Toby/Harry]” (46). Thea then places her tablet on the table so that Avery can see what she’s googled, giving Avery a valuable hint: “fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine” (47).