Page 88 of Us in Ruins
“I need to stand here, don’t I?” Van asked. “We can’t both leave.”
There was supposed to be a statue and something needed to be placed on the altar to trigger the door. Which meant that someone would get left behind. Unless...
“No. Let me,” Margot said. His face contorted in a pained expression, but before he could get any more heroic ideas and try to sacrifice himself again, she added, “You said it yourself. It’s like the House of Olea. If we put something on the altar, and I stand here, the door opens. Then, I can run off, and you can hold it open until I make it through.”
“I know what we need.” Van jumped into action, hoisting himself onto the staircase, and trekked back to where Mors’s skeletal frame laid in severed pieces. He lifted up the guardian’s skull and trudged back toward the altar.
Even—or maybe especially—decapitated, Mors gave Margot the heebie-jeebies.
The stone skull was nearly the size of Van’s chest, and he wobbled down the steps, cradling it with both arms. With the scraping sound of a column splintering, the temple trembled. A layer of debris collapsed behind Van.
A scream clawed up Margot’s throat as Van teetered on even feet. The weight of Mors’s head dragged him downward, just as a sheet of sediment blocked the upper half of the staircase.
“Hurry!” Margot yelled.
Van righted himself with a groan and a grimace. As he situated the guardian’s head on the altar, Margot scooted into position. Like she’d hoped, the door across the hall scrolled open.
She knew what it would mean to stand here—that Van could turn his back on her, decide she wasn’t worth as much as the treasure, and abandon her in the temple. Maybe love was just trusting and being trusted in return.
As Van approached the doorway, she wondered what he saw. What that first glimpse of gold looked like, what the first promise of notoriety felt like for the boy who had nothing to lose.
Then, he shifted, turning back to face her. There was no hesitation in his gaze, only glittering determination. He planted his feet, grounding his heels into the stone floors. With his arms primed to catch the door, he asked, “Ready?”
She sucked down a steadying breath. There wouldn’t be a second chance. “Can I get a countdown?”
Van’s forehead creased. “One hundred, ninety-nine, ninety-eight—”
“Three, two, one, go!” Margot shot toward the archway, and the rock wall released.
Sisyphus beneath his boulder, Van’s arms trembled with immediate effort. Margot pumped her arms at her side. The closer she got, the more she could see Van’s struggle—the bulging vein in his forehead, the sinew of his biceps.
Van fell to his knees, bracing his shoulders against the wall. With one hand, he reached toward her. “Faster!”
Margot slid onto her belly, diving toward the gap and sincerely hoping she wouldn’t get cut in half like an amateur magician’s assistant. Arms outstretched, Van caught her by the bracelet as his fingers snagged against the band of jade beads.
The cord inside snapped, beads scattering, but it gave him enough time to get a better grip on her wrist. He tugged her through to the other side milliseconds before the door banged against the tiles. Closed for good.
Lungs heaving, Margot pushed herself upright. Next to her, Van slung his arm around her shoulders, reeling her in. He murmured a single syllable: “Wow.”
It wasn’t a treasure room so much as it was an entire treasure wing. Mounds of gold lined a hall so long, Margot couldn’t see the end of it. Shelves striped the walls, holding rolled parchments, the kinds of ancient histories that academic archaeologists like Isla and Reed would have salivated over. Empirical busts and statues of Pompeii’s patron goddess were surrounded by gilded weapons and sparkling gems.
But Margot’s gaze caught on maybe the best treasure of all.
“I know,” she breathed, leaning her cheek against his chest. “A staircase.”
31
The staircase led them to a hatch that opened to a wholly unmemorable alleyway, a place where no one would consider prying up the cobblestones to find what waited underneath. When they resurfaced, the ground shook beneath Margot’s feet as if the guardians’ pounding footsteps were chasing them.
Van closed the hatch behind them. “What is that?”
The ground continued to rumble, rattling through Margot’s joints. They were a block or so from the grassy knoll, and the guardians... the guardians had all been buried, no magic left in their rubble bones.
Then, a stampede of cross traffic rushed down the main road toward the temple.
“Where is everyone going?” Margot asked a passing woman with a number-two pencil holding up her French twist.
The woman smiled. “You haven’t heard? Someone found the Vase of Venus Aurelia!”