The Final Gambit

“Everyone loves a Cinderella story.”

These words reestablish Avery’s rags-to-riches background. While there are many plots and mysteries throughout the trilogy, at the core of them all is Avery’s position: She is set to inherit Tobias Hawthorne’s massive fortune if she lives in Hawthorne House for a year. A reminder of Avery’s impoverished past makes the fact that she will give the fortune away even more shocking.

“We’ll figure out what the disk was. […] The world is the board, Heiress. We just have to keep rolling the dice.”

Games and puzzles are a constant motif throughout the trilogy. This is established in the first book, when Tobias names Avery as heir to his fortune and drags her into his games. With these words, Jameson articulates the book’s view that all things in life are a game.

“‘And who,’ Eve bit out, ‘is going to believe a girl like me?’”

Eve says these words to Avery when she first arrives at Hawthorne House, after Toby’s abduction. Avery, knowing that Toby (who is still presumed dead) wanted to keep Eve away from the Hawthornes, asks why Eve sought her out instead of going to the authorities. With these words, Eve reiterates her lack of power, wealth, and connections—things she craves. In this sense, Eve aligns with the old version of Avery, before Avery inherited Tobias’s fortune.