Chapter 28

In the temple below the surface, everything was dust and stone, with the faint scent of long-cooled smoke lingering in the thin air. Margot’s flashlight sliced through the darkness as she led Van and Astrid past the mural of Venus. The goddess’s watchful eyes seemed to cry, Do you know what you’re getting yourself into?

They’d left Charon to babysit Enzo, but Margot tipped off a guard on their way out. While security was occupied with his search-and-rescue mission, it was that much easier to slip into Venus’s sanctuary unseen. Margot’s pulse had leapfrogged as the temple’s hidden door slammed shut behind them.

Now, all five pieces of the Vase were back in the Temple of Venus for the first time in nearly a century.

Reaching into his tool belt for a box of matches, Van touched the flame to the sill halfway up the temple wall. The familiar blaze twined around the nave, dripping the stones in dancing flamelight. The temple was crypt quiet, so much like the first time she’d entered, but Margot knew it wouldn’t last long.

The guardians stood sentry by the door, frozen in various forms of fight—Terra strung his bow, Aqua took careful aim, Ignis held an arrow over his shoulder like a spear, and Aura leaned around the corner, preparing to strike. Mors’s empty stone eye sockets bored into Margot, like he’d been waiting for them to return.

Astrid shoved Margot aside, sprinting deeper into the temple on her own. The look of wonder that streaked across Astrid’s face, Margot knew she’d worn it, too. It was impossible not to revel in it—a temple worthy of the goddess of beauty.

Frescoes danced overhead: nymphs weaving through greenery; soldiers with their swords; poets writing on tablets; and a widow, mourning. Margot followed the paintings like an atlas, letting them lead her deeper into the temple. She tried to appreciate it because as soon as this was over, she never wanted to come back to this place ever again.

Dashing forward, Astrid said, “You can decide amongst yourselves who’s getting turned to stone because frankly, I don’t think I care.”

“Astrid, slow down,” Margot said.

“Well, it’s not like you didn’t know someone was getting sacrificed,” she huffed. “And we left Enzo back there.”

Margot laughed because otherwise she was going to cry. “Yeah, because it’s not nice to sacrifice people on the third date.”

“Suit yourself,” she heard Astrid grumble.

As she drove toward the altar at the far end, Astrid missed the way the shadows shifted in the corner of the temple, but Margot didn’t. Marble bones creaked behind her. She didn’t need to look to know that each sharpened arrowhead was aimed straight for their hearts.

Van froze next to Margot. “Ashby, stop moving.”

She turned on her heels, already annoyed. “If you’re getting cold feet, don’t blame—”

Terra loosed his arrow, and it pierced the air next to Astrid. Paling, she let out a mouselike squeak.

The guardians’ stone bodies had awoken quicker than they had the first time Margot had entered this temple. With all five shards here, the magic was more potent, more dangerous.

“They don’t want you,” Margot said as calmly as someone about to get Boromired could. “They want the shards.”

“Okay, and? What do you want me to do? Fight them? I’m not an idiot.” Astrid bolted, shooting toward the staircase to the second-floor balcony. She took the stairs two at a time, but it wasn’t going to be fast enough. Terra nocked another arrow, and it split the wall behind her, only narrowly missing her thigh.

Then the statue jolted forward, following Astrid. Ignis joined him up the stairs, cutting Margot and Van off. Their stone bodies moved unnaturally, too stiff in the knees, too rigid in the elbows.

Margot pressed her back flush with Van’s. She grabbed one of the tools from Van’s belt, a pointed shovel. As if that was going to be enough to fend the statues off. They rotated, trying to keep eyes on the rest of the guardians at once.

Aqua, Aura, and Mors surrounded them. Not to fight, she realized. The guardians were herding them, keeping Van and Margot away from Astrid and her shards.

“She’s right. We can’t win against them,” Margot gasped. A plan formulated in her head—something Astrid said locking into place. “But they can fight each other. We split up, make them aim at each other, and let them destroy themselves.”

“Genius,” Van said between breaths.

Margot counted down from three—starting with three, of course—and then she and Van darted opposite directions. Mors followed him, and Aqua tailed her, while Aura planted himself firmly in the center of the temple, releasing stone arrows toward both sides.

Ahead, Astrid rounded the balcony, bobbing and weaving between pillars as she tried to outrun the guardians. Margot surged closer, trying to position herself in line with Ignis. Aqua took aim, and Margot steadied herself. Heart pounding against her ribs, she waited, waited, waited.

The moment his carved fingers released the bow, she ducked. The arrow whooshed overhead. It struck stone with a crack. Looking back, the arrow had wedged itself in Ignis’s arm. Crevices formed on the surface of the guardian’s skin, the way Magic Shell cracked on top of vanilla ice cream. His arm crumbled to dust, landing in a heap by his feet.

“Yes!” Margot whooped, but her cheer was short-lived. Terra refocused on Margot, sandwiching her very literally between a rock and a hard place. “Never mind. Too soon.”

On the other side of the temple, Mors lurched toward Van. He dragged an arrow out of his sheath, and pulled his bowstring back. Van dodged left, and the arrow zipped across the temple, grazing Aqua’s leg.

Margot dove toward the nearest pillar. Terra and Aqua paced toward her from either side. An arrow slammed into the column, chipping marble off the side, and she hunkered down lower. Panic writhed in her chest, but she breathed it out through her nose. You can do this.

A scream interrupted Margot’s pep talk.

Across the balcony, Ignis, with his one arm, had Astrid cornered. Margot couldn’t sit here and do nothing—she wasn’t like Astrid. She’d never be able to sleep at night if she knew someone had gotten hurt because she’d done nothing. Even if that someone was Astrid Ashby.

“Please don’t make me regret this,” Margot muttered.

She raced toward Astrid, sliding between Terra’s legs like a softball shortstop. She watched over her shoulder as the guardians couldn’t course correct fast enough, and Aqua barreled into Terra. They ricocheted off each other, Terra crashing into the wall and Aqua into one of the pillars.

Ahead, Ignis held an arrow in his fist, poised over his shoulder. It happened too fast, a scene from a movie: Ignis slammed his hand down, Astrid skirted left, and the arrow’s dagger-sharp point skimmed her cheek, drawing a scrape of blood to the surface. She clutched the linen bag with the shards to her chest, shrinking herself into the corner. There was nowhere else for her to go.

Checking over her shoulder, Margot confirmed that Van was still sparring with Mors, but by the looks of it, he wasn’t winning. His white shirt had been stained in russet stripes with dried blood, and his skin wore a coat of sweat and grime. They couldn’t fend them off much longer.

She had to do something.

God, she hoped this worked. On the ground, Aura traced Margot’s path with a nocked arrow. Perfect. Margot ran faster, her backpack bouncing with each step and her knuckles aching around the hilt of her borrowed shovel. She only had one chance.

She heard the snap of Aura’s bowstring first, then the zip of his arrow as she tucked and rolled. The arrow sank into Astrid’s linen bag, splitting the fabric, and the shards scattered against the stone floors. A necessary casualty.

“No!” Astrid hollered, which was a weird way to pronounce, Thank you so much for making sure I didn’t get impaled!

Pushing Astrid behind her, Margot wedged herself between her dig partner and Ignis, holding her tool like a sword.

Astrid scowled. “You think a spade is going to stop him?”

“Actually,” Margot yelled, “it’s a trowel!”

Putting all her force into her swing, the trowel-that-was-maybe-a-spade smacked into Ignis’s chest. The hit threw her off-balance, and Margot skidded backward across the floor. Her head slammed against the ground. Black swam through her vision. Each breath came heavy, hurting.

Ignis wasn’t in much better shape. Her shovel had lodged itself in his chest, and now hairline fractures etched over his marble skin. He staggered backward into a pillar, and the impact cracked the stone column. All the way through. It severed in the middle, the top half sliding off the bottom. The pillar toppled over the balcony edge and landed with a crash over Aura.

Margot watched, flat on her back, as the rubble scattered into the far reaches of the temple. That was four guardians down. The only one left was Mors.

She twisted her head back to center. Blinking. Was that . . .

The ceiling splintered. Cracks webbed across its surface. Evidently, the pillar had been pivotal to the structural integrity of the temple. Load bearing.

“Oh no,” she whispered.

Fissures spread, and a chunk of stone shook itself loose. Margot rolled, barely avoiding blunt force trauma as the ceiling rained down around her. A dig site collapse. That was what they said had killed Van. Suddenly, she seriously hoped it hadn’t been a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Next to her, Astrid coughed and sputtered. She’d not been as quick on her feet, and a coat of white dust painted her from head to toe. On hands and knees, she searched the wreckage for the shards.

“Where are they?” Astrid asked as she dug through the rubble.

With the temple in this condition, they couldn’t stay down here much longer, and Margot wasn’t about to let Astrid eeny-meeny-miny-mo to see which one of them would become the sacrifice.

Margot stood, straightening the straps of her backpack. Her head throbbed where she’d smacked it against the limestone tiles, but she helped Astrid parse through the debris. Five gloss-black slivers of clay, that was all they needed, and she’d find a way for her and Van to survive this.

The ground beneath her feet quivered—the whole foundation of the temple had been jeopardized, struggling to withstand the pressure from thousands of years of compacted dirt over their heads. Margot dug faster. When her hand clasped around a black fragment, she couldn’t stop herself from gasping.

Astrid rushed to her side and forced the shard from Margot’s fingers. “Give me that.” She gathered the rest of the shards into her arms, half-feral like a raccoon hoarding grapes. Then Astrid sped back downstairs, leaping over Ignis’s fallen body.

Margot weaved between Aura and Terra as she chased after Astrid and the shards. “Astrid,” she warned, “whatever you’re doing, you’re going to have to live with it for the rest of your life.”

Astrid barked out a cold laugh, still hurtling down the stairs like she wasn’t about to curse someone to an eternal purgatory by way of metamorphic rock. Or not caring that she was. “I don’t need advice from you. Believe me.”

On the balcony, Van let out a warrior’s shout. Margot looked up in time to see him sever Mors’s skull from his skeletal frame with a chisel. He dropped the makeshift blade and fell to his knees, catching Margot’s eye.

They did it. They defeated the guardians.

Van’s lips curled into a smile, grin gleaming in the temple’s tawny light. He leaned over the balcony ledge and let out a triumphant holler. With his hair disheveled and his shirt blood-stained, the sight left Margot breathless. An invisible string drew her toward him.

But it wasn’t over.

Two hands shoved Margot sideways. Astrid pushed her onto the spot where she’d found Van that first night, encircled by wilted myrtles. It all happened too fast. Margot, stunned, stood paralyzed as Astrid slid all five shards onto the alabaster altar.

Their broken edges aligned. Reunited at last.

A strangled cry left Van’s mouth—a wounded sound Margot was certain she’d never be able to forget. She closed her eyes, wondering what it had felt like for him all those years ago as the stone crawled up his legs, through his chest, and into his heart.

There was no rush of cold over her skin like the marble had claimed her. No vibration of cruel magic in her bones. Her throat didn’t tighten, and her lungs didn’t squeeze out their last breath.

She peeled one eye open. “Did it work?”

“No, it didn’t work, or else you wouldn’t be asking that, you buffoon,” Astrid wailed.

Van flew down the stairs three at a time and leaped off the edge before making it to the platform. An expression Margot had never seen him wear before twisted his face as he slammed up against her. His hands surveyed Margot, roaming from her cheeks to her shoulders to her hips and back up again.

“You’re all right,” he said. Less like a question and more like a statement he was trying to convince himself was true.

The ceiling quaked above them. She craned her neck upward, and the color drained from her face. Margot didn’t need a bunch of credit hours in architecture to know that the roof wasn’t going to hold much longer.

Astrid seemed to know it, too. “Forget it,” she said to herself more than anyone. She shoveled the clay fragments into her backpack. “I’m not dying down here! The shards are better than nothing!”

Van moved to stop her. Gravel in his voice, he said, “We had a deal.”

Margot knew what he was thinking. How he’d handed his shard, his one tether to humanity, to Astrid—to an Ashby. That the second Astrid got out of his sight, the stone would seep straight back into his heart.

It didn’t matter because it was too late. The cracked ceiling caved beneath the weight of earth that had buried it. Astrid charged toward the exit, but when Van tried to sprint after her, Margot grabbed his hand and pulled him beneath the altar, holding on as the world fell down around them.