Page 26 of Us in Ruins

As the class filed out of the bus, Margot’s head moved autonomously, scanning the ruins for a familiar swoop of blond hair or a brooding presence.

What she’d say to Van if she found him, she hadn’t figured out yet. All she knew was that the last shard was somewhere in Pompeii, which meant that he was here somewhere, too.

She wasn’t sure how long she’d been digging—Minutes? Hours?—when Dr. Hunt cleared her throat behind Margot. It spooked her six inches into the air. “Margot, I’d like to have a word.”

She didn’t say it like she was in trouble, but Margot’s stomach sank like an anchor anyway. “Sure thing.”

The rest of the class arched over their dig plots. Had they noticed Van’s absence? As she stood, dusting herself off, Astrid shot Margot a tired glare. She’d returned sometime after Margot fell asleep and hadn’t made it down in time for breakfast this morning. Margot had slept similarly poorly with her face smashed against the pages of Relics of the Heart like she might telepathically assume some of Isla’s ingenuity.

Dr. Hunt turned and exited the dig site, leaving Margot to catch up to her as she raced onto the ruins’ main thoroughfare.

“Do you care to tell me why I received a one-thousand-word email from your father diagramming the exact steps I’d need to take to escort you to the airport this evening?” Dr. Hunt asked. She kept her eyes focused ahead as they walked.

“I’d rather not,” Margot muttered.

Dr. Hunt cracked a grin. “It really wasn’t a question.”

Overhead, the wide blue sky didn’t have a single cloud. The sun burned brightly, a lone interrogation lamp. As they paced down the ancient streets, Margot recounted the week’s events—conveniently leaving out any trace of Van and the Vase—until she reached the present day. Her nerves tied themselves into a sailor’s knot as she spoke. She barely registered where they’d wandered until the silver turnstiles at the Nola Gate came into view.

“Where are we going?” Margot asked. A solid part of her psyche thought maybe Dr. Hunt would escort her right back to the bus for a fast track to the airport.

Instead, she smiled. “There’s someone I think you should meet.”

Dr. Hunt took a sharp turn right and guided Margot onto a colonnaded portico inside the remnants of a sanctuary. Pastel paint stained the limestone walls with rural murals; statues dotted the courtyard. She stopped in front of one so suddenly that Margot almost rammed right into her.

“Who are we meeting?” Margot asked—the sanctuary was empty except for the two of them. And so deathly quiet that Margot heard her heartbeat too loudly in her chest.

The teacher gestured toward a statue. “Meet Venus.”

The sculpture stretched at least a yard over Margot’s head, so she wasn’t meeting Venus so much as she was meeting Venus’s stomach. The goddess stood tall, face smooth with confidence, and her lips quirked upward just enough, as if to say, I’m the goddess of love. You do love me, don’t you?

Margot cut her eyes between the marble rendition of Venus, and Dr. Hunt. Was she supposed to introduce herself back? It seemed like overkill for the bit.

Dr. Hunt, thankfully, spoke again before Margot made a fool of herself trying to shake the hand of a statue that had no intention of coming to life. “Obviously you know how important Venus was to Pompeii. Sure, she was known for being brash and impulsive. Some histories said she felt things too wildly, too raw. Some even say she was so angry from being scorned by a lover that she caused Mount Vesuvius to erupt.”

That, Margot could relate to. All her emotions felt molten, wreaking devastation in their path.

“The Romans didn’t love Venus in spite of those things but because of them.” Dr. Hunt was still looking at the statue, but her words pierced through Margot’s ribs. That thick, heavy muck in her chest softened and stretched thin, taffy in the hands of a confectioner.

Staring up at the goddess of love, Margot asked, “If she could come to life, what do you think she’d say?”

“Love requires us to be brave. Love for others, yes. But also love for ourselves.” Dr. Hunt pried her eyes away from Venus and donned a knowing smirk. “It takes real strength to follow your heart. Venus knows all about that.”

Margot nodded, afraid that speaking would shake something up inside her she wasn’t ready to face.

“Do you know why I invited you on this trip, Margot?”

The sudden change in topic nearly gave Margot whiplash.

“Your essay showed real promise,” Dr. Hunt continued.

Margot couldn’t help but roll her eyes. Her head lolled back with them, sweeping and dramatic. “Don’t humor me. I get it. I don’t know anything about archaeology, and honestly, Dr. Hunt? It’s way different than I thought it’d be. There’s so much dirt, and way too many spiderwebs, and don’t even get me started on the bones.”

Dr. Hunt laughed, cinching the skin at her eyes. “I’ll admit I was surprised when I saw your application, since you’d never been on my roster before, but your research was thorough, and your essay was engaging and enthusiastic. You have a real talent for writing.”

Margot had to admit she’d enjoyed writing it. She’d lost herself in the paragraphs and pages, only blinking back into herself in the darkest dregs of night, long after everyone else had left the library. But imagining being an archaeologist wasn’t the same as being one.

“It was just some silly story.”

Dr. Hunt clicked her tongue, disproving. “Stories are how we’re remembered. They’re the very reason we know about Venus and her Vase. Speaking of, have you found it yet?”

Startled, Margot fumbled. “Um, I . . .”

“I assume you wouldn’t let all of your research go to waste, and there must be some reason you insist on skipping half of my excursions.” Dr. Hunt faced her then, leaving nowhere to hide. Apparently she hadn’t been as sly as she thought she’d been.

“I’m sorry,” Margot said. Just another person to add to the list of people she’d disappointed this week.

Dr. Hunt, however, said, “I’m not mad.”

“You’re not?”

“I brought you here to learn, Margot. Nobody learns without making a few mistakes along the way.” Dr. Hunt clamped her hand on Margot’s shoulder and squeezed.

“But—”

“And, if you want, I’ll talk to your dad.”

Margot blinked. “Why would you do that?”

When Dr. Hunt shrugged, it wasn’t in an I don’t know kind of way but more of a I’m a wizard genius who knows everything way. “I won’t make you stay if you really hate it here, but if you truly didn’t want to be here, something tells me a headstrong girl like you would’ve been gone days ago. You’ve found something worth staying for.”

Margot should have thought of the Vase, but all she could think of was a pair of light green eyes, flecked with amber, one lone dimple, and a constellation of freckles over a once-broken nose.

Dr. Hunt turned toward the exit but glanced over her shoulder and nodded up at Venus’s watchful posture. “I know you’ve got what it takes to finish what you started.”

Easier said than done. Van could be anywhere in the city. He wouldn’t return to the buried Temple of Venus until he had all five shards. And it wasn’t like Venus herself was about to tell her where to find the last trial.

Actually.

Maybe Venus could tell her. Something Dr. Hunt said tripped a wire in Margot’s brain. Stories are how we’re remembered. Van had told her days ago that he’d puzzled out the trials by using the legend of the Vase of Venus Aurelia as a guidebook.

It wasn’t metaphors and imagery with him. She knew how he thought: critically, literally. One by one, she recounted the trials in the myth, and there was only one left—Mors. Even the thought of his carved bleeding heart sent gooseflesh down her arms with a crypt-cold shiver.

“That’s it,” Margot said suddenly. She jolted into motion, hightailing it out of the sanctuary. “Yes, I—oh, my god. Thank you, Dr. Hunt. You’re so right.”

Margot ran, arms pumping, toward Via del Vesuvio, sprinting until Pompeii peeled away from her and she stood at the frayed hem of the city. She could almost see the path she’d taken to sneak into the city after dark, like the earth still bore the tire marks from her borrowed scooter.

Chest heaving, she braced her hands on her knees and peered into the darkness below. The catacombs of the necropolis opened into the earth like an entrance to hell.

Each of the guardian’s trials had some correlating element, like Aqua’s underwater adventure and the way the earth closed around her during Terra’s trial. Fire, water, air, earth—and death. If Mors’s trial was going to be anywhere, it was going to be here.

She had survived the Nymphaeum, and it was her—not Van—who figured out a way through the trial of Aura. She could do this. She knew she could.

Not for Van. Not for her dad. Not to prove Astrid wrong. But for herself.