Page 42 of Us in Ruins

She took one look at Van and Margot and tsked. “Access to this department is reserved for curators and researchers only.”

“We’re researchers,” Margot offered, keeping her tone light.

The woman peered down her nose. “Is that so?”

“We’re researching the Vase of—”

Van unceremoniously knocked the stack of papers in the woman’s arms to the ground. They spilled, scattering against the floorboards. A shrill sound came out of the woman’s mouth, but Van used her distraction as an opportunity to snake the key out of her palm, wriggle it into the lock, and peel open the door.

“He’s sorry,” Margot said on Van’s behalf.

Van said flatly, “No, I’m not.”

He slammed the gate shut.

The archivist opened her mouth as if to call for security when the legionary barreled down the hallway. All that came out instead was a shriek.

In three massive strides, the statue closed the distance to the restricted section. The woman crawled out of his way, but he only had eyes for Margot and Van. It wasn’t a comforting thought, as the soldier wrenched the door straight off its hinges.

Margot backed into Van’s chest, her feet tangling in his. “We’ve got to go.”

Van grabbed her arm and dragged her with him. He was running now, and Margot’s legs did everything they could to keep up. This part of the museum housed looming pine shelves overflowing with patinated bronze and clothbound books. Records.

“Try not to tell strangers that we’re searching for one of the world’s most sought-after relics, could you?” Van snarked, still thinking about Margot’s unfinished sentence.

Still, his hand lingered on Margot’s arm, and her skin grew hot beneath his touch. It was purely for efficiency, that hand. He kept jerking her unexpectedly down different stretches of shelves, so there was nothing tender in the feel of his fingers against her forearm. Which made her even more glad he was too busy plunging down narrow corridors to notice the flushed pink on her face.

“What if there’s something in here?” she said suddenly, loosening the hold he had on her arm. “Something about the Vase. Like why it wasn’t at the House of Olea.”

Now was really not the time to be slowing down, and Van knew it. “And what do you expect to find? A treasure map?”

“Anything is better than the whopping nothing we have to work with now.” The floor shook with every step the statue grew nearer.

Margot grabbed Van by the sleeve and hauled him through the nearest door, locking it behind them. That would throw the legionary off their tracks. Hopefully.

Here, the bookshelves were denser, the texts thicker. In the narrow crevice between shelves, where shadows filled every space and the scent of yellowed pages was so strong Margot could taste it, Van’s shoulders curled in on themselves like the edge of a well-read paperback to avoid knocking books off their shelves.

“Think, Van.” Margot placed her hands on his arms, lifting onto her tiptoes. “There has to be something that could help us trace that shard down. There are about a million documents in this place. One of them could be a... a certificate or a ledger, or, I don’t know, a...”

Van huffed a breath through his nose. If he wasn’t so irritable, Margot almost would have thought it was a laugh. “Treasure hunters aren’t really big sticklers for paperwork. We aren’t going to find—Actually. Wait.”

Margot waited as the cogs in Van’s head whirred.

“Acquisition ledgers,” he whispered, each word barely a breath. “Earlier, you said maybe the shard ended up in a museum. If it had, it’d be documented somewhere.”

“Where would we find those?”

Van lifted his hands around them. Archived texts and artifacts filled every inch of this section. The shelves around them held books, sure, but practically none of them were labeled.

She raised an eyebrow. “My question still stands.”

“That way,” he said. “We’re looking for records, not relics.”

Navigating the corridors was a feat of bumping elbows, but Margot managed to twist around without knocking anything off the tightly packed shelves. Van, behind her, swiveled, too. Now, his breath was so close, she could feel the heat of it on the side of her neck.

Margot yanked down a random book wrapped in plastic. Someone had written indecipherable code on the packaging—or, maybe that was a call number. Distantly, she wished she’d taken that library cataloging elective last quarter when she’d had the chance.

Sliding out the book, it was more delicate than she’d even imagined. The binding frayed, and the spine split. Inside, plastic pages protected tattered parchment streaked with penned Latin phrases.

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