Chapter 3

Margot couldn’t sleep, and it had nothing to do with Astrid snoring like a Weedwacker.

She had the covers pulled up over her head and her phone flashlight nestled between her chin and Relics of the Heart. The words faded in and out of focus as her dad’s conversation replayed on a loop in her head, overtaking Isla and Reed’s banter. Which was totally rude because Margot had just gotten to the part where Reed kissed Isla as a decoy midheist, and it was steamy with a capital S.

Her dad must have gotten busy with work. A plane ticket hadn’t yet manifested itself in her inbox, but Margot didn’t dare dream she was off the hook. Rupert Rhodes was always running from one meeting to the next, but even he wouldn’t forget something like this. He was probably calling the airline support desk on his way to another open house at this very moment.

If he had actually listened to her, he’d understand that Margot hadn’t come to Italy just for the gelato. Van had documented his journey that fateful summer. Every wrong turn, every last-ditch effort, every triumph. His journal wasn’t just a historical text—it was a map. All Margot needed to do was retrace his steps, and she was certain she’d find the rest of the Vase shards.

There was no way she could be expected to lie here and listen to Astrid’s obstructed sinus passages for the next eight hours, especially if her last moments in Italy were slipping away. It was nearly midnight, the only light coming from stars and streetlights. No one would know she’d been gone at all.

Margot threw off her scratchy sheets and descended from the top bunk. She timed her steps with Astrid’s breathy inhales to cover up the ladder’s ungodly squeaking. By the door, she slid her feet into her high-tops, wrapping the laces around her ankles to double knot them. There was no telling what she’d encounter in the ruins. Quicksand? Rolling boulders? A tall, dark, and handsome dreamboat she’d become enemies-to-allies-to-lovers with? She had to be prepared for anything.

Without warning, Astrid rolled over, arm flailing wildly. Margot froze, leg midair, but her roommate just reburied her face in the pillow, content to snore until morning.

Slinging her backpack over her shoulders, Margot pocketed the room key. She shoved it down into her denim jacket, right next to the Vase shard and Van’s journal. She hadn’t bothered to change out of her pajamas—a pair of multicolored striped shorts and a matching button-up top—but she stashed her red lipstick in her backpack’s side pocket for good measure.

The elevator dinged when Margot reached the lobby. It obviously hadn’t gotten the memo that this was a covert operation. She slinked around the base of a sturdy column, pressing her back against the pillar to run recon.

On one end of the (horribly carpeted) lobby was an arched front door. Standing between her and sweet, sweet freedom was the front desk where Giuseppe the concierge yawned, tapping absentmindedly at his phone. Giuseppe was a pinstripe of a man with a mustache just as thin and dark circles so severe, she wondered if he’d ever had a good night’s sleep in his life.

She couldn’t exactly ask him for a lift to the ruins. There was no way the hotel shuttle would take her because the gates of Pompeii closed hours ago. A taxi would get her there—or the driver might kidnap her and scrape her insides away from her bones like a vulture scavenging dinner. No, thanks. Walking would be one hell of a workout, but she’d rather not risk any kidnapping or the aforementioned maiming.

What she needed was a ride of her own.

Margot squared her shoulders and held her chin high as she approached Giuseppe. All she needed to do was lure him away from the desk. She’d snag a key from the valet and be halfway to Pompeii before he ever realized something was missing.

In etiquette class, Miss Penelope always said there were three steps to making a good first impression. Smile. Make eye contact. And speak confidently. So, Margot wore her best pageant grin, looked straight into Giuseppe’s coffee-black eyes, and said, “I’d like another feather pillow.”

Giuseppe glanced up from his phone, sloth-slow.

“Please,” Margot added.

He laughed so hard, a little bit of spit flew out. Margot inched out of the splash zone.

“Is that a no?” she asked. Then, hopefully: “Or a maybe?”

Giuseppe looked down his nose. “Our pillows do not have feathers.”

Of course they didn’t. Hotel Villa Minerva wasn’t exactly a luxury accommodation.

“Two pillows, then,” Margot said. “My roommate, she snores like the dickens. An extra pillow would help all of us sleep better.”

The concierge clicked off his phone and stood, only to tower over Margot. His lips pinched, eyes slitting. “You sleep in your jacket?”

Margot had to quit musical theater because she couldn’t stop laughing when saying her lines. They felt like a lie on her tongue. Instead of saying anything, Margot shrugged, nodded, raised her eyebrows in quiet innocence.

Giuseppe caved. His heavy shoulders sagged even lower and he resigned himself to the linen closet. While he dragged out polyester pillows from beneath a pile of two-ply bedsheets, Margot skirted around the desk with one eye over her shoulder.

“Keys, where are you?” she whispered, digging through the drawers and rifling through cabinets. They had to be around here somewhere. Tape, three staplers, a handful of overly doodled pen pads. A cough drop supply, thirty-five ink pens, a stack of sticky notes. No keys. Anywhere.

The last drawer was labeled Servizio di Parcheggio.

Parking?

Margot tugged it open, and loose keys slid around the drawer, each wearing a diamond-shaped Hotel Villa Minerva tag. Jackpot. She grabbed one off the top and closed the drawer as quietly as humanly possible. Beggars really couldn’t be choosers.

She hopped back onto the other side of the desk only seconds before Giuseppe reappeared, his arms loaded with pillows. His voice was laced with annoyance when he asked, “Anything else?”

“No, just . . .” A stack of brochures at the end of his desk caught her eye. Guidebooks to Pompeii, Naples, Pisa. Perfect. “A map.”

“Where am I taking—”

“Room 320. Thank you!” Margot said, pacing backward. She waved—the hand with the key—but quickly pocketed it with a grin. If Giuseppe saw or managed to care in his obvious state of sleep deprivation, she didn’t stick around to find out, high-tailing out the front doors.

Outside, the pastel evening had bled into nighttime navies. The air was still heavy with humidity, but a swirling breeze tossed her curls around, sticking to the oily layer of gloss on her lips. Yellow scooters lined the back wall of the hotel. When Margot clicked the key fob, one of them lit up.

Her chariot awaited.

Every mile down the road was a step backward in time. The full moon cast a silver lining over each clay shingle. She steered between peeling stucco buildings and iron balconies spilling with houseplants, past delicatessens and miniature orange groves, down quiet streets with modern Pompeians closing shops while Mount Vesuvius herself loomed in the distance, a smudge on the night-dark horizon.

When she swerved onto a side street near the ruins, Margot cut the headlights by way of trial and error, smacking every button and pulling every lever. Cramped buildings turned into sparse fields as she neared the back of the ancient metropolis. The road ended abruptly, but Margot didn’t yield.

Kicking up dirt and dust, the scooter sputtered down the field, digging out grooves in the grasses. Her Vespa was lacking all major off-road qualifications. When the tires refused any forward motion, Margot yanked the key out of the ignition.

She huffed an errant curl out of her eyes. This was fine. All in the name of adventure.

Pulling the map of Pompeii from her pocket, Margot found a patch of moonlight and skimmed her finger along the printed alleyways, examining her options. Van’s journal didn’t say anything about nighttime security—but that was because nighttime security didn’t exist last century. Honestly, each of the main gates were probably swarming with guards. She’d need a prayer just to get through without getting caught.

There had to be another route.

She pinpointed a spot near the Necropolis of Vesuvio Gate. It didn’t look like the fifth region had any major excavations, largely untouched and smoothed over with greenery. Which meant that the guards didn’t have anything to actually guard. If she was going to make it inside without getting caught—or subsequently arrested by Interpol and, like, deported—this was her best chance.

Chaparral clawed at her legs and snagged the satin threads of her shorts as she hiked across the hillsides. Pines and palms threaded together overhead, cloaking her in shadows as she paced toward the ruins. Each step along the dirt path clouded dust in her wake, and the tree line broke as she neared the necropolis.

Ahead, a flashlight beam halted her. Guards.

Any farther and she’d be destined for a life in handcuffs. (Or at least boredom, back home and totally grounded.) The only thing standing between Margot and Pompeii was a chicken-wire fence that lined the city limits. Going around clearly wasn’t an option anymore, so the only way inside the ruins was . . . over.

Her hands clawed through the metal lacework. At least, she thought sourly, they don’t have an electric fence. When she got to the top, Margot couldn’t hesitate, couldn’t give herself the opportunity to second-guess. She leaped. Tucked, rolled. Sun-hardened soil rattled every bone, every joint, every cavity filling from too many Halloween sweets.

But when she lifted herself off the ground, there were no sirens blaring. No alarms rang. She hadn’t tripped a secret infrared thermometer monitoring the perimeter.

Immortal Pompeii wrapped around her—past and present, all at once. If she closed her eyes, she could imagine the crackling fires extinguishing after a long day, the sound of sandaled feet slapping the earth as kids ran home, the smell of olive branches and lemon trees, of ash and earth not so different from now.

In the dark, Margot barely remembered the crooked paths Dr. Hunt had led them down that afternoon. The patchwork of cobbled buildings all looked the same. She might have been totally lost, but Van knew where to go. Margot fanned toward his first journal entries. He’d written:

Perhaps love truly isn’t surface level. The temple where the Vase will be returned, a palace for a gilded goddess—it had been under my nose, hidden in plain sight the whole time. Everyone else underestimated this patch of dirt, despite the clear and obvious evidence we had to believe ceremonies had been performed here. I could nearly hear the ardent prayers on the wind. Even the myrtle blooms pointed this way.

To enter Venus’s temple, all I had to do was ask at the temple door.

Her heart thrummed at the sound of his words. If Van were here, he’d spearhead the way, surging bravely into the fray like any hero would. But he wasn’t here. And Margot was stuck deciphering his very romantic but terribly complicated riddles.

Seriously, he couldn’t have just said X marks the spot?

Margot scanned her surroundings, searching for anything even vaguely temple-y. The whole city was patches of dirt. She slipped Van’s journal into her backpack as she wove through the narrow alleys. Everything looked the same. Brown. Nondescript. Half-deteriorated. Stone walls rose around her in every direction, but nothing that screamed Venus Was Here.

Except. The soft white blooms on a sparse few myrtle shrubs. They filled the air with fragrance, and she let herself follow it like a bloodhound hunting. Their boughs stretched toward the ribboning moonlight and guided her forward, forward, forward.

She took one step, then another, until she was full-out sprinting between the crumbling buildings. Her head swiveled back and forth, back and forth, until she worried she’d loosen the bolts so much it would fall right off. Adrenaline spilled through her veins, turning her exhilarated and nervous and acutely aware of how much trouble she would be in if any of the guards caught her trespassing after hours.

Margot ran until pain surged in her waist, until her lungs burned. She slowed to a stop at a crossroads and slinked into the shadows as a guard whistled past. He didn’t seem particularly invested in his patrol, tossing his flashlight into the air and catching it behind his back with one hand while swiping on his phone screen with the other, humming a melody Margot didn’t recognize. Easy, practiced motions. Absolutely nothing out of the ordinary to see here.

Ahead, a big grassy knoll capped the hillside. Blooming myrtles encompassed its borders. It was as good of a chance as any. Suddenly, the guard swiveled left, and Margot jerked right, ducking behind another decaying structure.

If she could make it there.

Margot counted her breaths, waiting for the guard to round the next corner. At ten, she ran for it. Her feet pounded against the pavement. All she could do was pray the guard didn’t turn around because when she reached the top of the hill, there was nothing there.

Nothing to hide behind. Definitely no temples. Just a few half-decayed columns and patches of wildflowers.

She propped herself up against one of the stone outcroppings, sucking air deep into her lungs. Too bad she’d never had a track-and-field phase.

Think, Margot, think. Van had criticized his fellow excavators for not seeing what was right in front of him. What was she missing? He’d said all he had to do was ask.

“Hey, Venus,” Margot said, whisper quiet. “Any chance you want to tell a girl where your temple is?”

Only the wind answered. So much for a voice-activated homing device.

There were a few other crooked stone structures jutting out of the earth—remnants of pillars, a patch of tiled floor, half walls and hearths. Margot snuck through the courtyard, investigating. If she were the goddess of love, where would she hide her temple?

Another flashlight beam appeared at the edge of the courtyard. Then, another. That was so not good. Up here, there was nowhere else for her to run except down. The guards patrolled the hill’s base in a lazy arc—routine movements, but with every step, they inched closer.

Margot ducked down behind a wall of smooth, sunbaked stones. The center had been cut out. Almost like an oven or a fireplace. A hole not quite big enough for her to shove herself into, but definitely big enough to try.

Her head knocked against the ceiling as she curled into a ball. Something jammed into her spleen. Summering in Italy was supposed to be about a trillion times more glamorous than this.

By the time she dared to glance around the pillar, the guards had grouped together at the bottom of the hill, but it was too dark to tell if they were looking straight at her or something else entirely. Her heart thrummed like it knew the answer and was afraid of it. Prison orange was not her color.

Margot inched back into the shadows, but the stones jabbed her side again. Twisting, she realized one of the stones had pushed itself out. She knelt down to nudge it back into place, knees pressing into the alcove floor. The pressure shifted beneath her. The ground shook, moaned.

Uh . . .

Looking behind her, Margot gulped. The center of the meadow opened like a yawning mouth. Her head whipped between the stone pillar and what was evidently the doorway to the literal underworld.

Perhaps love truly isn’t surface level, Van had written. She didn’t know to take it so . . . literally. I could nearly hear the ardent prayers on the wind. All I had to do was ask at the temple door.

Margot hadn’t said a peep. But she’d knelt. As if in prayer. The weight of her knees must have tripped a lever, which had Rube Goldberged the entrance.

She leaned over it now and peered into the unyielding black. A breath of stiff air blew her hair back from her face, laced with floral perfume and smoke. Below, there was a stairwell. Super creepy and foreboding.

But she’d come all this way. She couldn’t turn back now.