Page 35 of Us in Ruins

House was a loose term. It was practically an outlet mall, with different wings fanning out from a central hub.

“Why would they just... stop excavating?” Margot followed him inside.

The structure jutted out of the earth, towering ten, maybe twelve, feet high. The roof had seen better days—patches of it gaped open, the clay shingles discarded in the dirt. In its heyday, it must have been a sight to behold. Even now, it left her breathless.

Although that might have been her dust allergy.

Van turned the corner, guiding them into a corridor with as many twists as turns. Here, the walls met at odd angles, creating sharp corners and unexpected crossroads. The deeper they dared, the darker the ruins grew as a cloud blotted out the silver moon. Black soot stained the walls, a reminder of the wrath of Vesuvius.

Something ivory slid beneath Margot’s foot, and she fumbled forward. Her goat-cheese pizza curdled in her stomach when she recognized it—a bone. Definitely human. Big enough to be a tibia, maybe a fibula? She hadn’t taken an anatomy class yet, but she didn’t need a PhD to know it once belonged to someone a lot like her.

“Why’d they stop?” Van kicked the bone out of the way, over toward the rest of the skeleton it must have belonged to. “Whoever was in here last either got what they came for or realized they never would.”

Margot gulped. Not exactly the vote of confidence she’d hoped for. “Do you think the shard’s still here?”

Van plunged into the halls. “Only one way to find out.”

The way the walls wove together, it was hard to tell left from right in the beam from Van’s borrowed flashlight. Margot couldn’t pinpoint a surefire way through—and besides, through to what?

“Whose trial is this?” she asked as they strode down the abandoned corridors.

“Aura,” Van answered. “The guardian of air.”

“I’m not sure I’d describe this house as airy,” Margot said. “Hadn’t they ever heard of an open-concept floor plan?”

The farther they strayed into the house, the closer the walls cinched together. Van’s shoulders brushed on either side ahead, and he shoved his hands in his pockets, making himself as small as possible. Which, admittedly, wasn’t very.

Cobwebs choked the narrow passages, tangling in Margot’s hair. No matter how much she swiped at them, she couldn’t unravel herself. Death by spider silk mummification sounded like a horrible way to go.

A thick one snared her leg, and Margot was pretty sure the spider was still attached.

She groaned. “This place would seriously flunk a home inspection.”

Somewhere in the House of Olea, something slammed into the earth. The impact rattled the ground, and Margot braced against the wall for support. She could feel her heartbeat in her stomach, her throat, her skull, like it was lurching around in her body, trying to fight its way out.

“What do you think that—” Margot started asking, but Van pressed a finger against his mouth, shushing her.

He cupped a hand against his ear. Margot listened, pinching her eyes closed to focus on the sound of...

Nothing. The house was still. No rival band of treasure-hunting looters attacking them from behind, no volcanic eruption promising imminent demise, no giant, evil spider building its web in preparation to eat them for dinner.

“I don’t hear anything,” Margot whispered.

“It’s this thing called silence,” Van said. Jaw rigid. “It happens when you quit complaining about everything.”

What a jerk. Margot rolled her eyes. Still, she kept her lips zipped.

They paused at a crossroads. Out of the corner of her eye, Margot saw something lurch in the shadows. Another heavy thunk shook the foundations of the home. Fear speared through her chest but was quickly replaced with a rush of excitement. They must have been getting close.

“Let’s go this way...”

But Van had other ideas. He’d vanished around the next corner.

“Are you sure this is the right direction?” she asked, sprinting after him.

A muscle in Van’s jaw twinged. “Yes.”

She glanced over her shoulder, but this time, nothing moved in her periphery. “I thought I saw something back there.”

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