Page 77 of Us in Ruins
Stalking toward the goblet in the middle, she tried not to pay attention to the giant statue of death watching her every move. With two hands, she lifted the goblet to her lips. A little liquid sloshed around the bottom. Tipping the goblet back, she drained the dregs, but spat them out just as quickly.
Nope, nope, nope.
“Oh, god. Never mind,” she said, tongue sticking out. It tasted like dirt water. It probably was dirt water, just moisture that had collected underground for the last gazillion years.
Was she imagining it, or did Charon look annoyed as she set the goblet back down?
The statue’s palm opened, and he flicked something silver into the air, its surface glinting in Margot’s flashlight beam. It landed with a metallic zing, swirling on its edges until it finally rested flat.
Charon’s obol. Which Margot was pretty sure was, like, a fancy ancient Roman quarter that people had been buried with, payment for the ferryman to charter them across the River Styx into the underworld.
She really hoped that wouldn’t be her fate tonight. Imminent death had not been on her summer bucket list.
Enzo recovered from his shock, kneeling forward like a squire to be knighted. “Please find me worthy of the shard.”
A laugh rustled out of Margot. “Nice try, but it definitely doesn’t work like that.”
“How would you know?” Enzo asked, words daggered.
Margot’s smile was equally bladelike. “Just a hunch.”
With any luck, he’d fail miserably, and she’d use his disappointment as a distraction to steal the one-strapped backpack off his shoulder and solve the trial herself.
She propped her flashlight up on a rocky ledge. Its too-white light spilled through the alcove. Charon grabbed the nearest goblet and flipped it upside down, slamming it over the top of the obol. Then, he turned over the rest of the cups with nothing underneath.
Ramming his rod back into the earth, Charon bade the goblets forward as if on an invisible track, spinning and circling. They swapped forward and backward, in and out of each other’s paths in a dizzying dance. Finally, they stilled once more in a semicircle.
Margot’s head spun. She’d played games like this before. Guess the goblet that had the obol underneath it. Except when she’d played, there’d been three options, not six. And now, with twice as many, she’d completely lost track of where it could be—the last on the left, maybe?
Instead, Charon raised the second cup on the right, revealing the obol underneath it. A knot cinched behind Margot’s sternum. She’d been way off. He nodded at them—and Margot understood. Their turn.
She didn’t want to think about what might happen if she guessed incorrectly.
Her thoughts wandered, without her permission, to Van. He must have found a way to win this trial a hundred years ago, a way to outwit death itself. Margot’s 83 percent chance of guessing the wrong cup wasn’t exactly reassuring. But if she had some way to mark which goblet was which...
As Charon waited for them to choose which cup to put the obol under, Margot’s eyes caught on the faint red smudge on the lip of one of the goblets. The perfect red tint she’d spent months searching for. The goblet she’d tried to drink from.
“Place it here,” she said, staring up into the courier’s blank stone eyes.
Startling, Enzo bleated, “What?”
“You snooze. You lose.” Literally, she hoped.
Once more, Charon slammed his ferryman pole into the earth. Margot trained her eyes on the goblet with the obol, struggling to keep track of it as the cups gained speed. It wouldn’t matter. When they stilled, she’d know which one was right.
Enzo’s head was too busy swiveling back and forth to pay any attention to the lipstick stain. He looked like he’d tried to do a triple pirouette without finding his spot. Dizzy and completely clueless.
As the cups slowed, he turned to Margot as if trying to read her mind. Time to channel her best Van-patented bluff. She kept her mouth neutral, eyes half-lidded like she had a hundred better things to be doing, and bit the inside of her cheek to keep from saying something she’d regret.
Charon tapped his stone fingers against his chin, impatient, although it wasn’t like he had much else better to do.
Enzo stepped forward noncommittally. At first, he favored the far-right goblet. Then, he backtracked toward the middle. He glanced back at Margot, but she refused to acknowledge the red-smudged chalice on the left.
After what felt like eons of deliberation, Enzo stalled in front of the goblet second from the right. Only then did Margot make her selection. She planted her hand on the base of the red-stained cup, squaring her shoulders. No hesitation needed.
“That’s the one you’re choosing?” Enzo asked.
Margot quirked an eyebrow.