When Avery returns to the Great Room, Oren is waiting for her. Avery wonders whether Oren left her earlier because Tobias Hawthorne instructed him to let Avery and the four brothers finish the game alone. Avery asks if Oren knows what is beneath the room, and Oren says he knows only about the tunnel.

Avery thinks about what happened underground, including Rebecca’s revelations and Skye’s connection to them. Grayson meets Avery’s eyes with a look that carries a question and hope, but Avery decides not to tell Oren anything more. Avery simply answers that Oren should not know more.

That night, Avery sits at Tobias Hawthorne’s desk in her wing and rereads the brief letter he left her: “Dearest Avery, I’m sorry. —T. T. H.” Avery reinterprets the apology. Instead of believing Tobias gave her the fortune to make amends, Avery begins to think Tobias was apologizing for using her and for making her the tool meant to bring his grandsons together.

Avery concludes that the inheritance was not about her mother’s secrets and not truly about Avery herself. Avery feels insignificant because the game appears to have ended and her purpose in Tobias’s design seems fulfilled. While looking at the desk’s hidden compass, Avery opens the first compartment and notices the etched T, then connects it to Tobias’s initials on the letter: T. T. H.

Avery experiments with the etched T and discovers a deeper mechanism. Pressing the T twice, finding a latch, and rotating the panel turns the T into an H. When Avery presses the bars of the H, another hidden compartment opens. Inside is a folder labeled with Avery’s full name, Avery Kylie Grambs.

The folder contains Avery’s birth certificate, with both her birth date and her father’s signature highlighted, which makes Avery think of her mother’s secret about the day Avery was born. The folder also holds years of photographs of Avery, beginning when Avery was six and increasing sharply after Emily’s death. The images show Avery working, protecting Libby from Drake, playing chess, spending time with Harry, and dreaming over postcards. Avery realizes Tobias did not know her personally, but Tobias had studied her closely enough to believe she could play his game. Avery understands that she was not only a name and date in Tobias’s plan, but a calculated choice: the fortune was left to Avery, and Avery was left to the Hawthorne brothers.