As Avery begins addressing the seven players, Gigi tries to focus despite secretly carrying a knife strapped beneath her gown and resenting what she sacrificed to keep it. Gigi watches Avery, Jameson, and the Hawthorne brothers stand together as a powerful unit, while Avery frames the Grandest Game as a chance to experience the kind of life-changing puzzle that once transformed Avery’s own life.

Avery announces that the prize for this year’s game is twenty-six million dollars, an unrestricted sum that immediately matters to Gigi. Jameson adds that every player will keep the elaborate jeweled masks from the ball, and Gigi calculates what her pearl, diamond, feather, and aquamarine mask might be worth.

Jameson and Avery then present seven small gold key pins. Avery explains that, regardless of who wins, the players now share an experience no one else will ever fully understand. Jameson connects the pins to a Hawthorne family rite of passage, and Avery emphasizes that the players are not alone, which affects Gigi even as her twin Savannah remains focused entirely on Avery.

The Hawthornes distribute the pins. Nash pins Gigi’s key to her dress and casually compliments her necklace, while Jameson announces that Grayson had no role in designing the game and is as uninformed as the contestants, despite overseeing operations.

Knox interrupts impatiently, demanding to know the game after dismissing the ceremony. Avery responds that every story has a beginning and that theirs begins when the sands of time run out. Xander opens a hidden compartment in the floor, removes a tall hourglass filled with sparkling black sand, and sets it on a table as the sand begins to fall. Avery then tells the players to follow her and Jameson.