Chapter 6

The five guardians nocked new arrows, each aimed at Margot’s chest. Every muscle in her body seized. Van, however, wasted no time transforming into an action movie hero. He slid between Mors and Terra, swiping an arrow from the quiver strapped to Terra’s back. Wielding the sharp edge of the arrowhead like a knife, he sliced through Ignis’s bowstring.

Margot was too busy last quarter taking astronomy and trying out for the rowing team to take Dr. Hunt’s class, but she was pretty sure fighting living statues wasn’t taught in Classical Archaeology.

“You should move,” Van instructed.

Right. Right.

Margot ducked right as the bowmen released, dust filtering over her head as their arrows slammed together. Her hands and knees pressed against the chilled stone floors as she scuttled out of the cross fire.

The guardians swiveled on their stands, tracing her every stride. It was unnerving to watch a statue move, as they moved with a gravity, slower and heavier than humans, but they only twisted in place, their feet glued to the spot.

“At least they can’t—” Margot began.

Aqua was the first off his pedestal. His cloak of waves moved with him as he took booming, marble-heavy steps.

She gulped. “Never mind.”

The rest of the guardians followed, treading forward. Toward her. Their footsteps slammed into the ground. Each pounding movement rattled the temple’s foundation, like the whole thing might just crumble.

Along the temple walls, Van touched the bulb of his torch to a ledge circling the first floor. A trail of fire snaked around the perimeter, blooming with orange firelight that sheared through the shadows.

Unfortunately, all the extra light only made it that much easier to see the guardians hunting Margot.

Fight and flight screamed equally loudly in her head. Flight: run toward the staircase at the far end and dig her way out if she had to, never looking back and never wondering what might have been. Fight: prove to Van that she wasn’t some foolish girl in over her head and convince him to work with her to find the missing shards.

“You should have never come down here,” Van called from across the hall. He swapped his torch for the chisel and trowel he had sheathed at his hip, wielding them like twin blades.

Fight, it was.

Maybe Van had the right idea. If she destroyed the guardians’ weapons, they’d be, like, at least a little easier to escape. All she needed to do was what he’d done.

Everywhere Margot ran, the guardians shifted toward her. She jumped, stretching all her fingers, and snatched one of the fletchings in Aura’s quiver. The statue spun on its heels, slow for a human—but significantly faster than any statue should have ever moved, which, as far as Margot was concerned, was not at all. Unfortunately, their arrows didn’t seem to be constrained by the same sluggishness.

The pale face, so close to her own, caught Margot off guard, and she fumbled, tripping over her heels. Her stolen arrow skittered over the ground, just out of reach. She crab-crawled away from Aura just as he reached for another arrow behind his head, sending her scooting backward until she was pressed flat against the wall. This was not going according to plan.

Aura took aim, his marble bowstring stretching with unnatural elasticity. Behind him, Van sprinted and slid, carving his chisel down the guardian’s back. The dull blade wasn’t enough to do any lasting damage, but just enough to make it so Margot wasn’t tragically impaled.

“What are you doing?” Van asked her. He managed to somehow seem completely unflustered by the fact they were being attacked by sentient statues, like this was just a regular day’s work for him.

“Trying to not get killed by these giant, evil Cupids,” she said. The duh was silent.

Van shook his head, almost imperceptibly. Margot knew what disappointment looked like. He didn’t offer her a hand up or anything. “Try harder.”

He didn’t wait for a response—he dashed toward the front of the nave and left Margot scrambling to catch up. Seriously, how long were his legs? Her feet slammed with every step, the stone jarring every joint.

Mors veered into her path, and Margot screeched to a halt. The skeleton’s eyeless skull craned down at her, and bringing a hand to his chest, he pulled the arrow out of his pulsing red heart.

She had to do something, or she wasn’t going to survive long enough to do anything ever again.

Come on, green belt. Don’t let me down now.

Margot brought her knee to her chest, and when she kicked, foot impacting the statue’s hand, the arrow dropped out of the guardian’s fingers. It hit the floor with enough force to snap it in half. An elated laugh ripped out of her in surprise.

“Oh, my god, did you see that?” Margot asked, but Van had already hiked halfway up the stairwell.

No way was she getting left down here alone. She raced to catch up with him. Margot’s breath burned in her lungs, searing a seam in her waist. A couple too-close-for-comfort arrows sliced past her ears as she took the stairs two at a time.

“There’s no way out,” she said when she met him halfway up. “It locked from the outside.”

This time, he didn’t even bother to shake his head. “There’s always another way.”

“I’m telling you, I didn’t see—”

Van punched a brick in the wall three times. On the third, it slotted into place and the ground overhead shuddered. The ceiling sank closer, but as soon as Margot thought it was going to crush them, it scrolled sideways and inched into a compartment at the top of the wall. Perfectly engineered.

Margot had never been so relieved to see moonlight.

Aboveground, Van stomped on the base of the hollow pillar where Margot had knelt. As she hauled herself to join him (he didn’t even offer his hand), she recognized it now—a niche for lit candles. This empty courtyard must have once been home to a sanctuary for Venus’s followers, a sacred place to gather. A facade for the real temple below the earth. The pressure from Van’s foot triggered the release of the door, and it slammed closed behind them.

Unfortunately, they’d traded stone guardians for security guards.

Flashlight beams bounced around the knoll. All aimed directly at Margot and Van. Beneath the bright lights, Margot could imagine what they looked like. Her in a pair of striped pajamas and a denim jacket, Van straight out of a 1930s L.L.Bean ad, and both of them covered head to toe in a layer of dust so thick, it would take Margot three Everything Showers to scrub it off her skin. There had to be some way for them to make it out of this alive and unhandcuffed.

Margot didn’t think. She just grabbed Van’s hand and pulled him left down the slope of the hill. They plunged into the darkness of the ruins, rubble rising up around them in every direction. At their backs, guards shouted, faint and fading as they raced farther away. What they said, Margot had no idea. Her Italian was limited to Scusi! and spaghetti—the necessities.

Van shook off her grip as soon as his feet hit the ancient pavement. He aimed toward the front entrance, but Margot jerked him by the suspenders—instead heading north toward the necropolis. The sudden change in momentum threw him off-balance, and his arms pinwheeled toward her, just as a flashlight beam cut across them.

Margot landed on top of his chest, squeezing him into the earth. His firm, muscular chest. This close, he smelled like rough leather and stone pine, like long afternoons in the sun. Exactly like she’d imagined.

“Get off of me,” he ordered.

Well, he wasn’t exactly like she’d imagined.

Heat rushed to Margot’s face. She forced herself upright and blew a loose strand of hair out of her face. “Sorry. Just trying to make sure neither of us get arrested tonight.”

Van stood, dusting himself off. “Why would we get arrested?”

“For starters, we’re trespassing.” Margot tucked the rogue curl behind her ear, listening for the guards’ approach. “Pretty sure there’s probably a destruction of property charge in there somewhere. Intention to commit larceny? I mean, we’re basically treasure hunters.”

That was the Legally Blonde era talking, when she’d shadowed a local judge for all of four days.

Evidently, Van wasn’t convinced. He turned the corner toward the front entrance, and Margot rushed to cut him off.

“Don’t,” she said. “Trust me. There are guards everywhere. The Nola Gate is a no-go. Head north until you pass the creepy graveyard. I’ve got a getaway car.”

Van’s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. “You can drive?”

“A bunch of statues just tried to kick our ass, and that’s what you’re shocked about?” Unbelievable. Margot shook her head. “I’ll hold the guards off and meet you outside the gate when the coast is clear. I’ve left a yellow Vespa nearby, but wait for me.”

Turning her back on him, Margot settled herself with an inhale. Not far off, she could hear the slap of the guards’ feet against the pathways, the echo of their shouts. She could do this. All the best escapes had a decoy.

Cupping her hands around her mouth, Margot shouted, “I’m over here!”

Behind her, Van asked flatly, “That’s your idea of holding them off?”

Whipping around, Margot’s cheeks burned when she saw Van standing exactly where she’d left him, hands shoved in his pockets and those scrutinizing green eyes trained on her in the pale light. She asked, “Is now the right time to criticize my methods?”

Van crooked his head, appraising her. His expression was unreadable, like he’d buried whatever he might have felt deep beneath the surface and Margot would have to pry it out if she ever wanted to understand him. Then, wordlessly, he tugged a chained compass around his neck up from underneath his shirt and checked his position before turning and heading toward the necropolis.

Margot took another steadying breath, bracing for the moment when security spotted her. She’d lead them on a goose chase, buying Van enough time to get ahead, and then she’d lose them in the fifth region, hopping the fence just like she had when she got here. It was just like Isla and Reed escaping the Durham Crew under gunfire on Crete in chapter eighteen of Relics of the Heart. Divide and conquer. Easy.

“Looking for someone?” Margot hollered.

A lone beam rounded the corner at the far end of the alley. Margot held her ground. She had to wait until the exact right moment, giving Van as much time as possible to make it past the ruins’ edge.

“Signorina, fermati adesso!” one of the guards replied. Not that Margot was in a position to dissect the sociopolitical hierarchy of the night-duty guards, but if she had to guess, he was the head honcho. He had a head full of dark hair and a face as wrinkled as a T-shirt you forgot in the dryer.

Except that Margot couldn’t fermati adesso, whatever that meant.

“Sorry,” she responded. “I haven’t reached that Duolingo level yet!”

Three more flashlight beams appeared. Then, three more. No, five more. Margot quailed, pacing backward with her hands held palms-out next to her face. The guards spoke, overlapping each other with shouted demands Margot couldn’t comprehend.

Around the next corner, another line of security guards materialized, fencing her in. Margot froze, staked to the ground with a spike of terror.

Okay. Maybe Van was right. This was a bad idea. Terrible.

The guards waded closer. She’d stalled between the buildings, closed in a dead end. What had Van said? There’s always another way.

Scanning the ancient street, Margot searched for new escape routes. There had to be something, but the structures leaned into each other, one stone wall flush against the next. A window had been carved into the stone facade, and the tiled roof had been remarkably preserved, the clay faded into pale red.

Well, when one door closes, a window opens.

Margot bolted toward the window and hoisted herself through feetfirst. She landed in a lousy excuse for a somersault, tumbling over herself in a tangle of limbs. Recovering, she sprinted through the house, zipping around walls plastered with ruddy-faced cherubs who looked absolutely nothing like the guardians they’d left in the temple below.

At the back of the house, she launched herself over a half-decayed wall. Or, at least, tried to. With gravel biting into the soft of her palms, her hold slipped, sneakers skidding, and the skin of her knees scraped against the stone.

Okay, ow. That couldn’t slow her down. She hooked a leg around the top of the wall, vaulting herself over, and scrambled down the backside.

The alleys were so narrow. If she stayed, the guards would corner her in three seconds flat. Using a window as a foothold, Margot stretched, grappling at the clay roofline. She heaved herself up with a groan.

From the rooftop, Margot spotted Van. He’d passed the graveyard and turned toward the city’s yellow glow, a moth to a flame. Margot raced along the roofs, balancing with her arms out, ancient roof tiles tinkling to the ground as she cried out a belated “Sorry!” Beneath her, the guards and their flashlights followed her every step. Whatever they hollered was lost on her, but she imagined it sounded a lot like, That’s very much not allowed and Get off the roof.

Fortunately for the guards but unfortunately for Margot, there wasn’t much roof left. The shingles evaporated, chipping off at the edge of a courtyard. Throwing her arms out for balance, she walked the thin ledge of the retaining wall like a gymnast’s beam as the guards barreled into the building below.

At the far side of the courtyard, Margot climbed down and made a fast break for the outskirts of the city, leaving the ruins strewn behind her. The fifth region’s wide-open fields swayed in the lilting wind. She hopped the fence with so little grace, she was glad no one had been around to see it.

Wait . . . no one was around.

Ahead, silhouetted in the moonlight, Van hiked over the hillsides. What part of wait for me hadn’t been clear?

Even running as fast as she could, Van felt impossibly far. “Slow down,” Margot called.

Van didn’t look over his shoulder. Margot had the lung capacity of a Choir Girl #7, not an Elphaba or an Eliza Schuyler, and her body screamed for air when she finally caught up with him. With her hands on her knees, her chest heaved, heart slowing back to a normal operating tempo.

“It’s this way.” She steered him toward the rut in the grass near the cul-de-sac with the flickering streetlight. Shaking the residual adrenaline out from her arms, Margot said, “That was incredible. I felt like a real Indiana Jones.”

Van’s forehead wrinkled. “Who?”

“He was . . . a little after your time.” With her hands in her pockets, Margot ran her thumb over the shard’s smooth side like a worry stone. “So, where to next?”

“I told you, no partners. I don’t need someone to worry about saving.”

“What are you talking about? You saved me, and then I saved you. We’re even.”

“Doesn’t matter.” Van’s pace didn’t slow. “I’m not associating with some troublemaking girl with a brain full of bad ideas.”

“I told you. You need me,” Margot said. And this time, she knew she had the upper hand. “You don’t know anything about the twenty-first century. We have wireless internet and cat cafés and Uber Eats. What are you going to do without a credit card or an ID or an international data plan? You don’t even have a car.”

“Sure, I do.” Van lifted his hand out of his pocket, dangling a diamond key ring stamped with the Hotel Villa Minerva logo. “Goodbye, Margot Rhodes.”

Margot checked the side pocket of her backpack where she thought—no, knew—she’d stashed that key, but it was empty. “How did you—hey! Give that back! You can’t just leave me!”

Van didn’t stop walking. Didn’t hesitate or turn back. Definitely didn’t slow down as Margot sprinted toward him. He just stuck the key into the scooter’s ignition and flashed the high beam on. Revving the whiny little engine, he shot off into the winding streets of citrus and stucco.

Without her.