Page 26 of Us in Ruins
“Nice of you to catch on,” Van said. He’d rounded the corner, fifteen or twenty steps ahead of her.
“So, the nymphs are the trial,” Margot said. She scoured her brain for the remnants of research she’d done while writing her application essay. “In the legend, Venus wanted to prove that anyone searching for her Vase had eyes for only her, right? Nymphs were beautiful deities, and Venus was notoriously jealous. We just have to not get distracted by the nymphs. Easy enough, right?”
A gruff noise released from Van’s chest. “Not exactly.”
Real comforting.
As the waves rose, lights gleamed beneath the surface, illuminating the grotto. Bioluminescent shells? It was hard to believe Margot arrived here by way of a literal sewer. This was something straight out of a storybook. With the water creeping higher in the basin, the underground sanctuary buzzed with an ancient energy. The same kind that had hummed through the temple. Something that felt an awful lot like magic.
Van halted inside one of the niches. They were roughly eye level with the highest nymph but on the opposite side of the Nymphaeum. He scanned the sanctuary, and as much as Margot tried, she couldn’t read his mind.
“What’s the plan?” she asked.
“Retrieve the shard.”
“Obviously,” Margot said. Although she didn’t see how that was possible, given the shard was nowhere to be found. “What can I do to help?”
The sea of clear water climbed up Margot’s calves, past her knees, to her thighs, but Van didn’t move an inch. He waited. And only when Margot’s ribs squeezed beneath the cold tide did he say, “You? Stay.”
“Stay?” Margot balked. She wasn’t a dog. How was that her one task? Just stay.
Code for don’t touch anything, don’t mess anything up. Margot stretched onto her tiptoes, breathing as deep and as wide as physically possible. When she couldn’t last any longer, and when the rising tide kept rising, she kicked her feet off the ledge and let the water carry her upward. Unfortunately, it was hard to sound authoritative while doggy paddling.
She never said how well she could swim. She hadn’t thought it would matter.
Van could still stand, but even he wouldn’t last for much longer. The water was rising too quickly. He scrutinized Margot like she was a relic beneath a magnifying glass.
“What?” she asked, surprised by how vulnerable she felt beneath his gaze. Suddenly, she was hyperaware of the way her T-shirt pillowed beneath the surface, lifting up past her belly button.
Van shook his head, rubbing his jaw. “Don’t make me regret bringing you here.”
Margot’s face lit up, and she could all but feel the glow radiating off her. “You won’t. Like I said. I’ll do anything.”
Van tapped a painted stone with a forefinger. “This stone doesn’t leave your sight. Understood? I’ll meet you back here once I have the shard.”
“But,” Margot started, her words muffled by a rising wave. She spat out a mouthful of water. “One problem. There is no shard.”
“Look again.” He pointed toward the nymphs.
In the center, the tallest nymph with her ringlets of stone hair and her outstretched arm stared at them, almost like she was alive. She unfurled her fingers when the water rose past her hand.
Margot rubbed at her eyes. No, not imagining things.
In the statue’s upright palm sat a familiar slice of black-and-gold pottery.
Margot’s mouth hung open in shock. “That’s—”
“Don’t do anything rash,” was Van’s parting line before sinking beneath the tide. Like she was nothing more than a skin condition.
The water had lifted them nearly to the top of the domed ceiling, only a few feet left. Margot gulped down as much air as her lungs could hold and slipped beneath the surface. She grabbed for purchase on the ledge of the niche, holding in one place. Her eyes stung when she opened them beneath the water—probably contaminated with about a trillion germs. But she didn’t exactly have another choice.
Van swam farther and farther away. As the water churned, he anchored himself with the hands of the nymphs, using their linked arms as a rope to guide him toward the highest and that glint of gold in her palm. If she tried really, really hard, Margot could almost pretend she was in the overly chlorinated pool at the Nassau resort they used to vacation at when she was a kid, and Van was diving for rubber torpedoes on the bottom. Even though Margot had quit swimming lessons when they asked her to dive in without plugging her nose and preferred the shallow end, playing for hours like she was a sunbathing mermaid.
All she had to do was stay right here. Perfectly doable.
A steady stream of bubbles floated up from Van’s nose as he reached the nymph. A sigh of relief nearly spilled out of Margot’s mouth, but she couldn’t sacrifice that precious oxygen. He’d grab the shard, and her lungs would quit burning soon enough.
Van glanced back at her, and Margot gave a big thumbs-up. Something indecipherable crossed his face, his eyebrows drawing together and an unspoken sentence on his lips. But he turned again before Margot could understand it.