Page 64 of Us in Ruins
“You didn’t. I just feel like... like I can’t breathe.” Each word cracked like chipped marble. He pushed slow, purposeful breaths out through his nose, and Margot recognized it immediately—the way someone tried to hold back tears.
“You’re afraid,” Margot said, taking his hands in hers. They were colder than she remembered and that scared her, too. “Honestly, I’d be shocked if you weren’t. But you don’t have to do this alone. I’m right here.”
The rest of Van’s resolve shattered. His head sank against Margot’s shoulder, burying his face in her neck as shallow breaths racked through him, shaking and sputtering. Margot’s hands found his back and pressed flat, firm. Her fingers felt each groove of his ribs, every notch of his spine.
“I’m right here,” she repeated, a mantra until the train slowed and Van’s frantic breathing slowed with it. Even if she wasn’t sure she could do anything else right lately, she was right here.
The gold compass around his neck had wrestled itself loose from its usual confines beneath his shirt in all the hubbub, and he clutched it, the movement second nature. She could just see the lines of the etching beneath his grasp. The very familiar lines.
“The emblem,” she said. “It’s the same one that was on Enzo’s hoodie.”
“Yes,” Van croaked. “The logo for Atlas Exploration Company. A hundred years later, and Atlas is still finding ways to mess with me.”
Margot clasped her hand around his. The compass had warmed from his touch. “We’ll find this shard and catch Enzo. I promise.”
The train halted. Napoli Centrale.
Margot donned her doggy glasses once more as she pried open the luggage room door, and Van tucked his compass back beneath his shirt.
The station was a glass and steel behemoth nestled between the Naples hillsides and a cerulean sea. When the doors slid open, Van stepped onto the platform next to her. Even though she could see the effort it took him, he held his head higher, determined. The train zipped off without them, sending wind through Margot’s curls. Next stop: the trial of Terra. Whether she was ready or not.
21
Van brought Margot to a freaking tomb. Not exactly dream-date material.
They stood shoulder to shoulder at the entrance to the Crypta Neapolitana. Behind them was a dazzling riviera. The kind of sight Margot expected to see on vintage postcards at the bottom of a hat box, all rough-edged and stamped with faded ink. Buildings with painted stucco walls in pastel yellows and citrus oranges, adorned with copper, were offset by the too-green leaves of the pines and palms.
Ahead? The Crypta Neapolitana was a tunnel, long and winding, where shadows slicked the walls and ivy crept through the crevices. According to Van, it would take them to the Tomb of Virgil. But that wasn’t their biggest issue right now.
“You mean you want us to go through... there. The miles-long tunnel through the mountain that is”—she gestured toward a white-and-red striped lever like the kind that blocked train tracks and an empty visitor’s center kiosk—“Clearly super open for guests.”
“It takes us straight to the tomb. No other way there.”
He shoved his hands in his pockets, hands she knew were turning to stone from the inside out, and something in Margot’s chest twinged. If she didn’t do something, soon the swirling stone would encase him, closing him off from her forever, just as she’d started to discover what was underneath his cold exterior.
“You do know that you had been allegedly crushed to death in an unsafe ruin, right?” Margot asked.
Van sighed. “You do know that didn’t actually happen, right?”
Glad to see he was back to his ordinarily persnickety self.
They ducked beneath the barrier and plunged into the ancient tunnel. Margot curled her arms around herself. Even though the air was still summertime sticky in the shade, she couldn’t shake the shiver from her skin.
“Any funny business I should worry about this time? Trapdoors? Snake pits? Mudslides? Do I have to fistfight the ghost of Virgil?” She’d meant for it to sound light, but shadows clawed at every word.
“This trial is a bit different than the first three. More of a test, less of a task.” He circled his neck. The strands of marble that stretched toward his ear groaned with the movement. Weren’t they getting closer? Why wasn’t the stone retreating? “Also, Virgil isn’t actually there.”
“What, did his bones just get up and walk out?”
“He was cremated. And then his ashes were lost in the Middle Ages. So, it’s basically just a big stone room.”
Margot eyed him. “How’d you learn all this stuff anyway?”
“All what stuff?” Van asked. He stared straight ahead, toward the pinprick light at the other side steadily growing larger.
“Like what happened in the Middle Ages to Virgil’s ashes, and everything about the Vase. I don’t reckon you read it all in the papers during your Newsies era.”
Van tugged at the collar of his shirt, fingers grazing over the seam where skin met stone. “Honestly, I... didn’t know much until I met Atlas. He taught me everything I know.”