Chapter 10

Margot’s shoes squeaked the whole way back to the ruins. Her clothes stuck to her in all the wrong places, her curls reeked of sewer water, and mascara stained beneath her eyes no matter how many times she swiped at it. Waterproof? As if.

She ditched her empty McFlurry cup (Oreo, obviously) in a trash can as they joined the line at the Nocera Gate. Their walk back had been silent. If Margot tried to talk to him, she was just going to cry or yell and let her too-big, too-much feelings take over. So, instead, she said nothing. Did nothing. Tried her absolute best to feel nothing, even if it ate her alive.

A horrible concoction of emotions swirled behind her sternum—leftover fear from the ache in her lungs, anger that Van would withhold crucial information about the trial that cost them the shard, and frustration at herself for agreeing to do anything to get the Vase without even wondering what anything would entail. She was just as naive and foolish as everyone expected her to be.

Naming her feelings helped ease the tar-black stickiness in her chest, just a little bit.

As the line inched closed to the city’s entrance, Van’s head swiveled around on his shoulders, clearly on edge. Every step they were about to take was one he had taken nearly a hundred years ago. The city unfurled in front of them like one of Van’s maps, charted in faded lines. Margot didn’t miss the faraway look in his eyes, like seeing a dream come to life. When he’d been left underground, trapped in that marble shell, most of this city had still been buried. As if realizing the same thing, his hands had curled into fists by his sides, nervous.

Despite everything else, Margot felt a pang of sympathy. “Different, huh?”

“I hadn’t noticed it last night, but, yes, very.” He ran a hand through his damp hair, lifting the threads of gold out of his eyes.

“I’ve never seen this many people here. And everybody has those . . . flashlights.”

“Flashlights?” Margot’s face scrunched up in confusion until she followed Van’s gaze. “Oh, those are phones.”

“You can make calls from your flashlights?”

Margot laughed, light. Some of her resentment chipped away. “You can do just about anything from those flashlights.”

Van shoved his hand in his pocket, jaw tightening as the line inched toward the gate.

Something about his stature—his rounded shoulders, his uneasy posture—made Margot want to smooth the tension out between them. “I don’t really feel like I fit in here either, you know. Everyone else on the trip, they earned their spot, but I’m still trying to prove I did, too.”

“I know what that’s like.” A knowing look, a flash of memory, crossed his face. “I came from nothing, but Atlas had everything.”

The line scooted forward until they were back inside the ancient city limits, and Margot steered them toward the dig site. Dr. Hunt’s white tent loomed ahead. Dread pooled in Margot’s knees, refusing to carry her forward. She could already hear the familiar refrain of lectures about how she was too hasty, too emotional, too much.

“And now we aren’t any closer to remaking the Vase,” Margot sulked. “My hair is going to smell like sewer sludge for the next eternity, Dr. Hunt is probably going to ship me home for insubordination, and we didn’t even get the next shard.”

Her feet decided to move again, but it felt a little too much like walking the plank.

“Margot, wait.” Van halted in the middle of the road, and streams of tourists forked around him. Taking his hand out of his pocket, he held open a flat palm and a fragment of clay.

“Oh, my god,” she said, just a wisp of breath, a whisper only they would hear. Van had managed to grab hold of the second shard after all. “You couldn’t have mentioned this an hour ago?”

“I just . . .”

“Didn’t want me to mess it up again?” Margot finished.

His fingers coiled back around the shard. Even if he didn’t say it, she knew it was the truth. But there was something in the way he held the shard like a peace offering that softened the sting.

He dropped his gaze toward her backpack, the other shard still safely inside. “Turn around,” he said. When she twisted, he opened her backpack and slid the shard into the zippered compartment, right next to the first fragment. “Whatever you do, don’t lose them.”

“I won’t,” she said, turning back toward him and sticking out her littlest finger. “We’re partners, remember? Pinky swear.”

He examined her finger, all the while keeping his hand at his side. “That won’t be necessary.”

Margot’s mouth sank into a frustrated scowl. Just when she thought they were making progress.

As they approached the courtyard, all eyes turned to them. Dr. Hunt lurched upright, pacing away from where she’d been helping Suki classify something at her foldable desk.

Margot imagined how she must have looked—disheveled and waterlogged. She’d been gone for hours with no warning, only to return looking like she’d lost a fistfight with Davy Jones himself.

“Margot,” Dr. Hunt said, little more than a hiss. “Where have you been?”

“And who have you been there with?” Suki asked, butting in.

Margot stuttered, all her words gathering in her mouth but refusing to form coherent sentences. She needed an excuse, and she needed it fast, but her brain still sloshed with Nymphaeum water. “I didn’t mean to, um. I—”

“She was with me,” Van said behind her. “I just arrived. Margot came to get me from the train station.”

Something stirred in Margot’s chest. Sticking his neck out for her . . . it was sweet in an I-nearly-got-you-killed kind of way. “You know, because of the buddy system.”

Dr. Hunt’s attention shifted to Van. She blinked up at him as if trying to place him in her mind. “And you’re?”

“Van . . .”

“Vanderson,” Margot flubbed. “Last name. First name, uh, Chad. You know Chad. He transferred to Radcliffe during winter break and joined the archaeology club.”

“Chad Vanderson?” Dr. Hunt asked, eyeing Van suspiciously. “Did I read your application essay?”

“Yes,” the syrupy lie dripped easily off Van’s tongue.

Dr. Hunt nodded half-heartedly. “There must have been a misunderstanding. Our trip is fully booked.”

Margot gaped, unable to hide the shock on her face. No way did she unearth the key to finding the Vase only to get thwarted by academic logistics. “He can stay, though. Right?”

“I’m so sorry,” Dr. Hunt said. “Without a co-chaperone, I can’t supervise any additional students. I hate that you came all this way.”

Suddenly, Van’s posture shifted. His shoulders straightened, chin tilting at a haughty angle. Even the tenor of his voice lilted, cool and unaffected. “Surely you can find a way to accommodate me after everything my father has contributed to the school. I am a Vanderson, after all.”

“He is a Vanderson, after all,” Margot echoed. She plucked one of the tools from the holster at his waistband. “And look, he even brought his own trowel!”

“That’s a spade, Margot,” Van said, under his breath.

Margot swallowed hard. She scratched nervously at the skin on her neck. “Point is, he’s totally ready for the class.”

Dr. Hunt sighed. A sound Margot knew all too well. It sounded like every time her dad had to let her down easy. “There’s just no—”

“He can be my partner,” Suki offered quickly. Moon-wide eyes roved over Van, head to toe.

“That’s okay, Suki. He can join Topher and Calvin at Plot C,” Dr. Hunt said. To Van she added, “You’ll room with them and Rex at the hotel. I’ll make sure we get an extra bed for you. At least until I can get in touch with Radcliffe and see if we can straighten out this . . . misunderstanding.”

Across the courtyard, Topher waved half-heartedly. The movement was laced with suspicion. Calvin, a redheaded boy who seriously needed to re-up on his SPF, crooked his head next to him, confused. No one, obviously, recognized Van from the archaeology club. Margot just hoped they wouldn’t realize she’d Mandela effected them. At least until she got her hands on the Vase.

“Your father’s money?” Margot asked as they neared their dig plots.

“The only thing deeper than the Vandersons’ coffers is our confidence,” he said, still even-keeled although Margot swore the corner of his lip tilted upward. With that act, Van deserved a daytime Emmy.

The rest of the students had definitely started to stare. Margot couldn’t exactly blame them. Van was practically twice Margot’s height and strong enough to carry her fireman-style in case of emergencies. But the sun had bleached the color from his hair, leaving streaks of pale yellow in a bed of rich blond, and freckles scattered across the high points of his cheeks—making him look far more approachable than Margot knew him to be.

Astrid’s narrowed gaze settled on Van as he introduced himself to his new classmates with a few terse words. She asked, “What are you wearing?”

“Clothes,” Van deadpanned. He unsheathed his tools from their holster and spread them out meticulously at the roped edge of his plot.

Margot dug inside her soggy backpack for Relics of the Heart. Her fingertips grazed the wrinkled cover, where Isla and Reed held each other, lips only a breath apart. The pages warped, still dripping. It was probably useless, but Margot fanned out the pages and placed them into a pool of sunlight, praying they somehow dried.

Van nudged his notebook next to it. Equally soaked, the leather cover had puffed up twice its size. Margot winced at the thought of losing such a precious historical document, the way the photographs would bleed.

Topher laughed, bringing Margot back to the conversation. It was a good-natured sound but still grating. “Yeah, buddy, those are some pretty sick suspenders.”

Margot cut in. “His flight got delayed and he got rerouted through Morocco, and the airline left his luggage in Casablanca. Can you believe it?”

Astrid’s forehead fully wrinkled like perhaps she could not, in fact, believe it. She sniffed the way you would after a whiff of bad fish. Which. Given their recent surroundings, maybe she had. “You know, he kind of reminds me of that guy you wrote your application essay about, Margot.”

Her whole body froze. A thin laugh peeled out. She didn’t dare sneak a glance at Van, observing on the sidelines. “What? No way.”

“Actually, I totally see it,” Suki chimed. “He’s got that Rick O’Connell thing going for him.”

Rex scoffed. “No one but you watches those old movies, Suki.”

“We have The Mummy to thank for my bisexual awakening,” Suki said, smiling. She tugged a strand of hair behind her ear, letting Rex’s words slide right off her with an easygoing self-assuredness that made Margot’s stomach clench with envy.

“Have you read Margot’s essay, Chad?” Astrid hardly waited for him to shake his head yes or no before dragging out her phone. She’d probably bookmarked the page just to ridicule Margot with it. “Oh, you have to. Margot’s the only student on our trip with no prior archaeology experience, so she really wowed Dr. Hunt with her . . . creativity.”

To his credit, Van ignored Astrid remarkably well. He etched his chisel into the earth, scoring the dirt so that it was easier to shovel.

Margot, unfortunately, felt her cheeks turn redder than Georgia’s red clay. “That’s really not necessary. Let’s not—”

“No, let’s.” Astrid beamed, her smile like a scythe. “Sunlight spilled down the rolling hills and puddled at the feet of a fearless young explorer with Pompeii at his fingertips. Blond haired, green eyed, and every bit as dashing as the rumors said.”

Van’s head whipped up. His eyes searched Margot, a silent question she wished she didn’t have to answer. Of course she’d written about him. When she found his journal and the sliver of the Vase in the library, she couldn’t get him out of her head. Every time she closed her eyes, he was there—as real and whole as if he’d stepped out of the pages himself. Writing his story for her application essay had felt like an extension of her own.

He was the whole reason she was here.

Astrid kept reading, much to Margot’s dismay. “The explorer stepped into the Temple of Venus and never looked back. The five missing shards had returned, and he was seconds from completing his destiny when the door swung open behind him. ‘What are you doing here, Keane?’ the woman asked.”

Van snapped a pencil from clutching it too hard. Great. She excavated the Incredible Hulk.

But beyond his affinity for crushing things, Van was . . . just a boy. A boy who never asked to be resurrected a century too late, who, if he hadn’t been dressed like a Milo Thatch wannabe, could have easily passed as one of Radcliffe’s rugby players or, like, a super buff quiz bowl member.

They wouldn’t know he was the same boy Margot wrote about. They couldn’t.

“This is my favorite part.” Astrid scrolled down. Margot pinched her eyes closed, bracing for impact. “When Van searched for the Vase, he hadn’t expected to find love. But there she was. As undeniable as the sun.”

Shame slithered up Margot’s spine. She knew what came next. A heroine who looked strikingly similar to her except with none of her flaws—Marlow Rhodes was decisive and even-tempered. The kind of girl with a magnetic core, the world orbiting around her.

“That’s enough,” Van said. There was something final in his tone. Knife sharp and dangerous. “I don’t need to hear any more.”

They scraped away the years of history, pitching into the earth until the sun followed. Margot’s skin felt too tight—she couldn’t tell if her cheeks were sunburned red or stained that way from continuous mortification. When they arrived back at Hotel Villa Minerva, Dr. Hunt gathered everyone in the lobby, rapping on her clipboard with her knuckles.

“Great work today, everyone.” Was Margot imagining it, or did Dr. Hunt’s eyes linger a little too long on her? “You have some free time tonight, but remember, tomorrow we’re leaving bright and early for our overnight trip to Rome. On our agenda: a tour of the Roman Museum of Antiquities and Roman Archives. We’ll be there one night, and I will not have spare toothbrushes, so double-check your toiletries bags.”

She dismissed them, and the class dispersed toward the elevators. Rex clapped Van on the shoulder, and Van stiffened beneath his grasp. “We’re in room three-eighteen.”

Suki hung back. “We’re all going out to find some pizza. You should join us.”

“No,” Van said. A single, solitary syllable.

“He’s kidding,” Margot interjected. She elbowed him in his side, and when he looked at her, she flashed an exaggerated grin.

He reciprocated, forced. “We’ll be there.”

Suki glanced between them, something like hope and hurt dashing across her face. “Okay, meet back here in twenty minutes.”

Van nodded but didn’t budge. He waited until Rex and Suki trailed off to pivot toward Margot, those green eyes smoldering like a forest fire. “You could have warned me I’d be going back to high school.”

Margot barely batted an eye. “If I had, would you have said yes?”

He groaned, an obvious no. “Your friends are buffoons.”

She peered ahead at the girls, Suki leaning her head against Astrid’s shoulder as they walked, arms linked. Topher, Rex, and Calvin laughed, rowdy and chasing each other through the lobby as if they were in a game of flag football. Her fingernails dug into her palms when she remembered how they’d laughed this afternoon—decidedly at her, not with. “I don’t know if they’re really my friends.”

“But you want them to be?” he asked.

His words pressed against a yellowed bruise from their earlier conversation, faded but still painful. She’d been a chameleon for as long as she could remember—trying desperately to become what everyone needed her to be, to find the place she belonged. She shrugged, noncommittal, because she didn’t trust her words to come out evenly.

“They’re still buffoons.” He fiddled with the sleeves of his shirt, cuffing and uncuffing them. “They talked about me like I wasn’t even there.”

“Well, you’re not supposed to be here. Or, at least, you’re supposed to be a million years old.”

His mouth pinched tight. “Do I look a million years old to you?”

“You look cranky.” Margot’s voice softened, then, as they slowed to the back of the pack. She could barely stand to look at him as she said, “Listen, I’m sorry I wrote my essay about you.”

“Don’t be.”

Margot froze. She’d expected an earful about how she didn’t deserve to be here based on the merit of her essay (or lack thereof). At best, some kind of lecture about how she was too busy living in her daydreams and needed to focus on reality. “Don’t be?”

He examined her, his features incomprehensible. She’d grown used to feeling unmoored around him. But when he looked at her, Van’s green-eyed stare pierced right through her, like Margot wasn’t muscle and bone, marrow and blood, but a puzzle he could solve. “It’s an invasion of privacy to read someone’s personal writings without their permission.”

Margot sagged. She remembered the rough edge to his voice when he’d said I don’t need to hear any more. “I know, I really do. And you’re right, I shouldn’t have read your journal, but I—”

“I meant them reading your essay.” Van slowed, stilled. The elevator went up without them. His head tilted, considering. “Although. How much of my journal did you read?”

“Enough,” Margot said, her throat constricting.

Enough to know that he’d been orphaned, that he’d left New York City that summer with no one waiting for him to return, that he hated sharing a tent with Atlas even though he was his best friend because he still didn’t trust him, that he wasn’t really sure he’d ever trusted anyone. Enough to find the temple, to find him. To know him better than anyone ever had.

And that, she wouldn’t apologize for.