Page 79 of Us in Ruins

She scrambled toward the fragments, hands reaching. Her fingers latched onto the shard, lacing around its sharp angles, as someone’s boots stepped into view.

27

Holding a lit torch, Van wore a familiar pair of leather boots, a tool belt strapped around his waist, and an ill-fitting graphic T-shirt that said From Naples with Love.

Van was here. Van was here?

A lick of hot embarrassment lashed up Margot’s neck—of all the ways she thought they’d find each other again, sprawled out on the floor of the necropolis hadn’t topped the list. Margot was fairly certain she wasn’t concussed, which meant Van probably wasn’t a hallucination, but his sudden appearance stunned her into such complete shock that she almost forgot she had a face full of dirt and absolutely no dignity left. You know, almost.

The way he stood, posture rigid and eyes narrowed, Margot knew he was on guard.

Behind her, Enzo asked, “A little help, per favore?”

Margot lifted her eyes toward Van, letting her gaze turn sharp. Were they... working together?

In response, Van tilted his head, almost imperceptibly. Not a nod, a gesture. His hand slipped into his pocket, retrieving the shard from the trial of Terra. His grip on it tightened—protective, almost.

Maybe, Margot thought with a jab of discomfort, he’d planned on turning Enzo to stone instead of me.

Only Enzo wasn’t talking to Van.

Astrid emerged from the shadows, her gold-plated shovel in one hand and her backpack strapped over her shoulders. “Why would I help you?” she asked Enzo. “You couldn’t even handle one puny trial.”

Clearly Margot was missing something. Astrid knew Enzo?

It clicked, then. Astrid staying out past curfew. The blue eye shadow debacle. The coffee mug pieces at the bottom of Margot’s stolen backpack. Astrid had been sneaking around with Enzo all week. He must have asked to use the coffee mug shards as a decoy—heck, she’d probably handed them to him herself.

“Astrid,” Margot groaned, “you’ve got horrible taste in secret admirers.”

“Who do you think you are, my fairy godmother?” Astrid laughed, thin and airy. She waved her shovel like a magic wand. “I didn’t come here for love advice, genius.”

The movement raised a red flag in Margot’s brain. Her eyes darted to the compass around Van’s neck, and her chest squeezed tighter, making it harder to breathe. The emblem on Van’s compass was the same as the one on Enzo’s hoodie, but they both matched the engraving on Astrid’s gold-plated shovel. She could just make out the outline of it in the flickering orange of Van’s torch—an off-kilter globe wrapped in a satin ribbon.

The Atlas Exploration Company logo. That was where she’d seen it before.

A wave of nausea crashed over Margot. She prayed she didn’t already know the answer to the question she needed to ask. “Van, what did you say Atlas’s last name was?”

His lips flattened. “I didn’t.”

“And if you had?”

Van wasn’t the one to answer.

“He would have said Ashby.” Astrid beamed like she was in a toothpaste commercial. She produced a linen pouch from her backpack. The contents of it clinked together—clay against clay. The other shards. Astrid had them. “Atlas Oswald Ashby. My great-grandfather.”

A breath rushed out of Margot as if she’d taken a fist to the breastbone. It was a setup. She should have seen the web they’d been weaving a hundred miles away. Should have realized that Astrid had known the inscription on the Vase before it was even complete. Should have noticed Astrid’s resemblance to Atlas in the photo of him and Van—she’d been so enamored with Van that she’d hardly given Atlas a second thought.

But she saw it now. Astrid’s white-blonde hair, her slender features, even the pompous way she carried herself, like the Vase was her birthright—of course she felt like that. She’d crafted her own plan to get what she believed was rightfully hers. Exactly like an Ashby would.

Margot steadied herself against an outcropping, but then realized her hand was fully resting on someone’s cranium. She shook the feeling of skull out of her fingers and swallowed down a tide of bile. This was all too much. With a temper white-hot, Margot refocused on Astrid, saying, “I helped you get ready for a date, and you were just...”

“Gathering intel before rendezvousing about the shards?” Astrid said, all too happily finishing Margot’s thought. She weighed the pottery in her palm, and Margot imagined what it would look like when they’d slotted together on the altar, a gold seam welding the pieces together in a perfect fit. “Yeah, you’ll get over it. Because the Vase is my legacy, not yours. You should have heard the stories I was told growing up. About how Van Keane cheated my family out of what is rightfully ours. My great-grandfather put Pompeii on the map. Funded every dig. Was the only reason Van ever even made it here. And somehow everyone remembers Van instead, when he couldn’t even turn to stone at the right time.”

“At the right—he knew?” Margot cut in, a chill creeping over her. Atlas had planned to sacrifice Van?

“Of course he knew!” Astrid said, breaking off to laugh. “Ashbys actually do the real hard work. Translating, researching. Realizing he needed a sacrifice. Always said Van was perfect for the job. Strong arms and a hard head. Marble must have suited him.”

Margot gasped, her eyes burning. “Do you even hear yourself?”

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