Page 51 of Us in Ruins

Every neuron in her brain rapidly fired. She needed three things in quick succession: a weapon; the shard; and to get the hell out of here.

Margot ducked when Enzo brandished his blade—which was still enormously threatening despite basically being half a sword. Was he seriously going to try to attack her? In public?

As if reading her mind, Enzo growled. The other vendors barely looked over.

Today’s forecast was evidently cloudy with a chance of stabbing.

Enzo’s other hand, the one he wasn’t trying to finely mince her with, held tightly to the shard. So tightly his knuckles lost their blood, and Margot imagined the rough edge etching into the skin of his palm.

She swiped the fake shard from the display, barely missing the swing of his blade. Maybe, somehow, she could swap them. If she didn’t get shish kebabbed first.

Scanning her immediate surroundings, she searched for something, anything.

There was a leather sack and its accompanying silver coins, a stack of books, presumably in Latin and possibly cursed, and a rusted iron pot. Definitely the pot.

Margot dove for its handle as Enzo lunged forward, and his blade zinged off the ancient metal. A surprised yelp—of both triumph and fear—tore up her throat.

Enzo doubled down. “Your partner is not here to save you.”

She slammed the edge of her makeshift shield into Enzo’s forearm, and his hand instinctively opened. The shard clattered to the floorboards. “Lucky for you, I took a quarter of reflexology for my PE credit.”

Margot didn’t wait for him to respond. She dove to the floor, lifting the pot over her head as Enzo struck down on her, and scooped the Vase piece into her hands. Using the cookware as cover, she stuffed the shard in her back pocket but clutched the decoy in her fist.

Enzo grasped the hem of her shirt, and Margot fumbled. The decoy slipped out of her fingers, launching into the air. He reeled back, reaching for the clay, and caught it like a major-league shortstop. While he relished his catch, she ditched the pot and slid between Enzo’s legs.

Margot raced through the market. Her head swiveled, searching for any trace of Van. A signal. She needed a signal.

“Wait!” Enzo shouted. “Thief!”

So much for not getting caught. He must have realized he had the fake.

The stalls blurred around her as she sprinted. She launched herself over the top of a display case and then dove under a clothing rack, tangling herself in a tunic. On the other side was a stall with an assortment of instruments—some Margot recognized and others she didn’t. Like the curlicue trumpet perched on a stand.

That would do.

Pinching her mouth tightly, remembering the training of exactly two weeks of band camp, Margot blew into the horn’s mouthpiece. Nothing happened, except for the vendor zapping to attention and hollering something Margot didn’t catch.

With Margot’s next breath, the trumpet let out a brassy cry.

But Enzo cleared the corner. She had no choice but to drop the instrument. Her arms pumped, and her legs pedaled as fast as they could. Van, where are you?

17

Enzo had the stamina of a marathon runner. His relentless chase had Margot’s lungs searing.

She cut each corner close, desperately trying to add a few feet between them. As she ran, she slid the stolen shard into her backpack, zipping it up safe. Then, she used both hands to launch herself over a display case housing an alarming number of shrunken heads.

(An unalarming number of shrunken heads was probably, like, zero.)

Margot landed on her feet and powered forward. She chanced a glance back at Enzo, several stalls behind, and grinned, which was just long enough to slam into something she quickly recognized as Van’s chest. For a minute, electricity pulsed between them. But then, Margot jolted backward, like she couldn’t stand the voltage.

He held her by her shoulders. “A cornu. Nice choice for a signal.”

“I stole it,” she gasped.

“The cornu?”

Margot squinted. “The shard.”