Page 61 of Us in Ruins

The stodgy thing in Margot’s stomach somehow thickened. “How do you know?”

“I’m literally an award-winning linguist.”

“Literally whatever. It doesn’t mean you’re right.”

“He’s using you. When he’s done, he’ll have all the riches in the world, and you’ll be a statue. You can’t trust him.”

“But I can trust you?” Margot didn’t mean to spit it out like Astrid had tried to poison her. It just came out that way.

“You can,” Astrid said. “Because I am right, and if you don’t know it yet, you will soon. I’m just looking out for you, Margot.”

Margot couldn’t believe her—why would she? Astrid had been nothing but cruel to her all summer. Tonight was no different. She should have never believed it might have been.

It didn’t matter that Margot hadn’t seen the last two shards. They wouldn’t say that. They couldn’t. They’d find the last two shards, and then she’d have the full inscription. And Van wouldn’t turn her to stone after everything they’d been through.

“Or suit yourself,” Astrid added, snide. She dotted the baby-pink lip stain over her lips without even bothering to ask Margot’s opinion. “But when I’m right and you can’t see it because you’re blinded by your feelings, I’m saying I told you so.”

Margot would have expected nothing less.

20

Margot jolted awake when the train lurched to a stop, somewhere deep in the hills of Lazio. Her cheek was still warm with the impression of Van’s shoulder—where she had apparently dozed off sometime between boarding the train in Rome and now. She could only hope she hadn’t drooled.

“Did I miss it?” she asked, frantically brushing wild curls out of her face.

“Not yet,” Van said. His scowl carved deeper into his forehead today, and his voice was gravelly. Margot wasn’t sure if it was because of their early morning wake-up call or the distance from the shards. “Next stop is us.”

While the rest of the class was going to get carted back to their dig plots in Pompeii, Margot and Van needed to make a quick pit stop. And pray that Enzo hadn’t made it there first.

Margot kept telling herself that there was no way he had—Enzo would have had to solve the legend’s riddles to decode the trial’s location and survive the trial with no existing knowledge. It was a fool’s errand. But as far as Margot knew about treasure hunters, they didn’t really like to lose their treasures after they’d hunted them. Enzo had been a dragon watching over his trove, and Margot was quite certain they’d awakened the beast.

“Is everything okay?” she asked.

Van answered with a grunt that sounded kind of, maybe, like he’d said words, but frankly it was so grunty that she could barely tell.

“That doesn’t sound okay.”

“I said it’s fine.”

Margot refrained from reminding him he hadn’t actually said anything at all. He refocused out the window, watching the sun-gold scenery drift past. Across the aisle, Astrid caught Margot’s gaze.

Lapideum, she mouthed.

Margot rolled her eyes. It didn’t matter what Astrid thought—Margot knew she could trust Van. Even if he was clearly not a morning person.

Astrid, on the other hand, had apparently had the time of her life last night. A few specks of leftover mascara dotted her cheeks like freckles, but she’d popped out of bed like a toaster pastry this morning and buzzed like her blood was made of espresso. Some date.

Margot melted deep into the outdated fabric folds of her seat. The tips of her fingers traced the shape of the jade beads around her wrist, and she was acutely aware of the space Van took up next to her—the way his knee almost rested against hers, the shape of his spine as it curled toward the window, how his head leaned against the pane, tilting toward the light.

Next to her. But also somewhere far away.

As hard as she tried, she couldn’t stop thinking about last night on the rooftop. It takes courage to let people see you for who you really are. Her whole body thrummed with the memory, electrified by the way he’d looked at her. Like he meant it. Like she could believe him.

In a feeble attempt to make sure he didn’t catch her staring at him, she reached into the canvas tote she’d grabbed at a corner gift shop to replace her stolen backpack and wriggled out Relics of the Heart. It hadn’t bounced back after its trip through the Nymphaeum. Ridges and valleys curled the paper unnaturally, leaving it stiff and cracking, but she opened it anyway. She smoothed her hands over the coarse pages—briefly, she wondered if she really needed the book if she already had every line memorized.

Gingerly, she separated the pages, taking care not to tear them. As she thumbed through the chapters, she caught glimpses of Isla and Reed’s journeys as they transitioned from rival archaeologists to begrudging colleagues to soulmates, tangled in the thread that tied their lives together before they even knew it.

Margot paused at the opening of her favorite chapter. Thirty-one. Isla and Reed were so close to finding the Vase of Venus Aurelia, but Reed had just been outed as a double agent working with the evil Edgar Alfred Durham to double his profits. Isla hadn’t forgiven him yet, but he had a grand gesture up his sleeve.

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