Chapter 5

Margot screamed. Van screamed back.

And, look, it wasn’t like Margot was a devout realist. Every decision she’d ever made had come from the heart, not the head. She believed in fairy tales, in happy endings. Signs from the universe, Santa Claus, soulmates. In basically everything she could. What was life without a little storybook magic in it?

But this? In what universe did statues become people? Certainly not hers. Margot’s brain short-circuited. The longer she stared at him, the less she could believe it.

He looked exactly like he had in the photo—his tawny hair tousled like he couldn’t care less, a jawline she could cut a steak with, and suspenders stretched over the broadest shoulders Margot had ever seen.

He also looked . . . mad. At her, specifically.

“Why are you screaming?” she asked, shrill. “I’m the one who’s supposed to be screaming.”

Van tried to say something, sucking in a deep breath, but it triggered a hacking cough. All the dust would do that. He glared at her, his face turning red. But that was probably just the lack of oxygen.

Margot felt like she’d chugged forty ounces of Mountain Dew. Blood rushed through her head, dizzying. It made her daring. She stepped closer. “You’re really him, aren’t you? Van Keane?”

Hard eyes cut up at her. “Who,” he finally choked out, “even are you?”

“I’m Margot Rhodes.” She smiled and stuck out her hand for him to shake.

“Margot Rhodes.” He said her name like he’d just tried cilantro and discovered it tasted like soap. He glanced at her hand—only glanced, decidedly did not shake it. Heat prickled the back of Margot’s neck at the rejection. “Mind telling me what you’re doing in my temple . . . in your pajamas?”

“Your temple?” Margot asked. To her surprise, there was a lilt to her voice, playful, teasing. “You don’t look like the goddess of love.”

“Finders keepers.” Van rolled his neck as if oiling the hinges, testing for creaks. Every action was laced with annoyance. Like he’d been terribly inconvenienced in that statue and was late to an appointment he couldn’t miss. “So, what are you? A secretary? A reporter?”

“I’m an archaeologist,” Margot said, squinting.

Van pivoted so fast that Margot nearly impaled herself on a sharpened marble bow, nocked by one of the guardians. She startled onto her heels as his gaze ran the length of her, a computational look in his eyes. “I know every archaeologist in southern Italy, and you’re not one.”

Margot bristled. “You couldn’t possibly know that.”

“Then, who are you working with? Speichler? Charles and deWolfe?” Van asked. Then, shaking his head like he was already three steps ahead of her side of the conversation, he added, “Doesn’t matter. Atlas will be back soon, and you’ll need to be long gone.”

“No, he’s . . .”

Van arched an eyebrow. When Margot trailed off, breathless at the weight of his look, he closed the space between them, looming over her. “No one knows how to find this place except me. Not even Atlas knows how to operate the temple door, I made sure of it. How did you get in here?”

The words froze in Margot’s throat. Her cheeks flushed, reminding her pink was a verb. Because, well, how could she tell him that he was the only reason she’d found the temple?

Van leaned close enough that she could feel his breath, hot against her ear. “I’m going to ask one more time. What are you doing here?”

“The same thing you are,” she said, a stubborn, determined edge to her voice. “Looking for the Vase of Venus Aurelia.”

“Why would you be looking for—”

Van brushed past her, stalking toward the altar. His palms slammed against the polished stone. Head hanging toward his chest, he swallowed a groan of frustration. When he turned back to Margot, she suddenly wished she’d taken Master Park’s tae kwon do lessons more seriously.

“What have you done with them?” Van’s voice plateaued, unamused and impatient.

“I didn’t do anything with anything,” Margot said. An admittedly flimsy argument for an equally vague accusation.

A laugh cracked through Van’s chest, hollow. “Please. The shards of the Vase, they were all right here moments ago. I don’t need to look for them because I already found them.”

Margot inched forward, slowly, the way you’d approach a wild, wounded animal. “Do you know what happened to you?”

How did you break it to someone that they’d missed the invention of the internet, the introduction of women to the workforce, and the rise, fall, and unfortunate comeback of low-rise jeans?

Van didn’t back down. “I was fitting the Vase of Venus Aurelia together, but now it seems someone’s stolen the shards.”

“No. No. I didn’t. They weren’t there when I came down here, and they haven’t been for a long, long time. But you . . . you have no idea.” At Van’s expression—a mixture of confusion and rising irritation—Margot sighed. “I mean, of course you don’t. How could you know? Down here probably looks the same to you now as it did then.”

Van cursed under his breath. He ran an agitated hand through his hair while the other searched his pockets. “Could you quit all your blabbering, kid? I’ve got a few more pressing issues than how the ruins look.”

Kid. It wormed under Margot’s skin. The polite placating she’d grown too used to hearing when people underestimated her. Not this time.

Her voice grew thorns. “The shards are gone.”

“What aren’t you telling me?” Van’s fist fastened around the collar of her shirt.

This close, she could see the pale greens of his eyes, the contour of a nose broken at least once, and there, on his otherwise fair cheeks, a smattering of freckles from spending too much time in the sun.

Her traitor of a heart leaped. Not the time. When she’d imagined Van Keane, she thought he’d have been a noble explorer, someone curious and driven. Instead, he was just a jerk with something to prove.

“I haven’t seen the shards,” Margot said. Her voice softened. Even if he was a jerk, she couldn’t deny the way his cheek twinged, the muscle clenching in frustration and disappointment. Everything he cared about: gone. She could feel his desperation as if it were her own. “No one’s ever seen them all. Except you.”

His knuckles grazed the skin of her neck, clutching her tighter. His lips pinched into a line. Steam could have poured out of his ears, and it wouldn’t have surprised Margot.

“Take a look around. They’re gone,” Margot said. The bite found its way back into her voice as she placed a hand over his knuckles, attempting to extricate the collar of her jacket. It didn’t matter how prestigious he was or how cute his lone cheek dimple was when he smiled. She was not some rag doll for him to throw around. “If you’d listen to me for two seconds, you’d know that when I walked in here, you were as stone as those statues, and you have been for the last century.”

That was enough for him to loosen his grip entirely. “Elaborate.”

“It’s been ninety-six years since you walked into this temple for the first time, and you’re the only person who’s ever gotten even a little bit close to finding the Vase of Venus Aurelia, which is a huge deal, like congratulations, and everybody thought you died but apparently you were just turned into a statue, and your team split up after the accident, and then someone found your journal, and it ended up in my school library, and—” Margot gulped down a breath. “Now you’re here. With me. And no Vase.”

Which was just a teeny tiny lie, but Margot could still feel the curve of her lip, angling upward in a betraying smile. Hopefully Van couldn’t read her like an open book. And-slash-or hadn’t somehow developed supernatural X-ray vision during his tenure as a hunk of marble that would let him see the shard shoved deep, deep into her pocket.

Telling him about it now would sacrifice the only upper hand she had. She couldn’t afford to do that.

Van finally let go of Margot’s collar. Which was now completely wrinkled, but whatever. She hit the floor with a thud.

He thumbed at a divot between his eyebrows. “How?”

“How what?” Margot asked, picking herself up.

“How did I get turned into a statue? How did the Vase vanish? How did this all go wrong?” He’d slumped against the altar. With his head pressed between his palms, his shoulders sloped in on themselves. Before Margot could say anything, do anything, to console him, Van zipped upright. Composed, calm. Like maybe some of his memories all rushed back to him at once. “That’s it.”

“What’s it?” Margot’s eyebrows shot up. “You know where the shards went?”

The cogs in his head were spinning—she could see it in his eyes. He was focused on something hidden, puzzling it out. Not listening to her at all. To himself, he whispered, “They reset. They have to be earned again.”

It only hardened Margot’s resolve. “I’m going to find it. The rest of the Vase.”

“No, you’re not.”

Okay, so he apparently had very selective hearing.

“Yes, I am.” Margot pulled her shoulders back, ironing out the curve in her spine to look him straight in the eyes. “I have to. It’s the whole reason I’m here, and you’re going to help me do it.”

Van laughed once, one monosyllabic bark. “I don’t do partners. Not anymore. And I definitely don’t work with you.”

Margot squared her shoulders. “Why not?”

Van’s calculated stare bore into her. In the dark centers of his eyes, all her insecurities reflected back at her. “You lack the qualifications.”

“Like what?” Margot asked, crossing her arms to hold herself together.

“Like proper attire.”

“I have other clothes back at my hotel,” Margot huffed. “So, that’s not even a good argument. Plus, you’ll never find them all without me.”

“I’ll take my chances,” Van said, a triumphant slant to his words.

Margot wished she could say she was above pleading, but she wasn’t. “I’m telling you that you need me as much as I need you.”

“Which is why you couldn’t be bothered to put on proper clothes?”

“This is very cute, very respectable sleepwear!” Margot groaned, stepping closer. She pressed an accusing finger against his chest. “If I hadn’t come down here, you’d still be a two-ton pile of stone. It wouldn’t kill you to say thank you, you know. I’m not some—”

Margot’s phone decided that was an incredible time for the battery to die.

A stifling darkness shrouded them, suffocatingly heavy. Then, with a strike, a globe of orange flared the end of a matchstick. Van returned a box of matches to his pocket and reached for a torch that hung against a nearby pillar. He doused it in flames. Stark shadows probed through the temple in contrast to the sudden light.

The nave illuminated—taller and wider than Margot could have possibly imagined. The ruins overhead were nothing in comparison to the grandeur of this buried temple.

Every wall was painted in brilliant colors, colors the sun hadn’t been able to wash away. Rich, indulgent pigment stained every surface, painting visions of rolling fields with wildflower blooms and still seas. Twin staircases on either side led to railed balconies that wreathed the temple’s walls. A palace suitable for a goddess.

Van barely noticed. This place was old news to him.

“I’ll survive just fine without you,” he said. Not cocky, just . . . certain.

Peering up at him, Margot wanted to shout. To tell him he was wrong about her—to prove herself to him and everyone else who thought she couldn’t do this. In that precise moment, when Margot felt like she could 1,000 percent handle anything thrown her way, certain that she, too, could survive just fine on her own, an arrow zinged between their noses.

With a crack, the marble projectile embedded into the wall.

Margot paled. Slowly, she pivoted toward the statues standing sentry around the altar. Ignis’s bowstring still vibrated.

The guardians were alive.