Chapter Nine

The Nymphaeum stretched what seemed like miles above them, culminating in a domed ceiling that had been painted sky blue and dotted with feathered clouds. Lining the walls were a hundred niches, each wreathed with sprawling vines and blooming flowers all handcrafted from stone. The room was dominated by a paved basin. Inside it, columns jutted upward, holding up intricately carved statues of beautiful women—or, Margot supposed, nymphs.

The statues seemed to dance, each midtwirl with skirts billowing around their lithe frames on an invisible breeze. Their hands clasped together, a daisy chain. At the highest point, a nymph with angled features raised her hand toward the heavens.

Van closed the hatch they came through and, as if reading her mind, said, “It used to be a reservoir. A sanctuary. A place they would worship the nymphs, goddesses of the springs. There would have been all kinds of plants—trees, flowers, you name it. The fountain fills from a redirected spring. Surprisingly advanced for the first century.”

Margot tried to imagine it. A chill radiated off the stones, seeping through her skin and demanding to be felt. What used to be a sparkling grotto of blue waters had long since dried up, but Margot trailed her fingers along the stones and felt the indentations where pouring water had worn it away. Fresh vines of too-green ivy crept down the walls, thirsty and searching.

It would have been so romantic if it weren’t for the skeletons.

Mismatched piles of dried-out bones were scattered across the floor. An empty rib cage in a heap by the statues, a skull in front of a staircase that wound up and around the walls of the Nymphaeum. Margot’s stomach rolled at the sight, but no way in hell was she going to let Van see her squirm. He already thought she had no merit as an archaeologist—the last thing she wanted to do was prove him right.

“So, the shard’s in here somewhere?” Margot asked. It felt wrong to walk across the mosaic floors. Chipped glass had been pressed into ornate patterns, not that different from the floor in the temple, the color faded from the years. Too beautiful for a place so haunted—and, if the skeletons warned of anything, dangerous.

Van, however, didn’t take such a delicate approach. He slammed the side of his fist against the wall, testing it. Dust scattered in the wake. The stone he’d punched bore the image of a gold-plated shell, now fractured. “Used to be, at least.”

“Did you ever consider not destroying this place in the process?” Margot asked. She could hear it in her memory, the way Dr. Hunt has chastised her. Try not to destroy a UNESCO World Heritage site. Getting blamed for Van’s heavy-handed approach was not something she was interested in.

He didn’t answer. Typical. But he did sucker punch another stamped stone. Margot cringed, imagining the bruises forming on his fist. The structural integrity of this build seemed pretty solid based on the way he wrung out his aching fingers after the second hit.

“Where did you find it last time?” Margot asked.

Van smacked another brick, and this time, the stone budged. He cocked an eyebrow and said, “Here.”

Nothing happened. Margot watched Van, waiting, but he was undeterred by the anticlimactic moment. Okay, hot shot. Now what?

He climbed up the staircase, shoulders squared and taking them two at a time. Halfway up, he wavered, dragged back as if something had tugged on his shirtsleeves. Like, maybe his conscience.

“You can swim, right?”

“Um. Yes?” Margot jogged up the staircase, careful not to slip on the crumbling edges. Swimming hardly seemed of relevance. This place was as dry as the bones strewn across the floor.

A noise behind her had Margot spinning on her heels. Thankfully, the statues of the nymphs stayed blessedly still. The noise happened again, and this time, Margot recognized it.

A drip.

“Is that . . . ?” her voice trailed off as she listened. Another drip, and then another.

Water poured out of shells that dotted the limestone facade. It spilled against the stones, washing away the layer of dust on the mosaic basin and rendering everything in stunning, sparkling clarity.

“The trial of Aqua,” she said, thunderstruck.

“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.

As soon as Van lifted the shard off the nymph’s palm, the currents shifted. Wild as a riptide, a jet stream shot out of the niche and jerked Margot into the center of the sanctuary. Her arms struggled against the current. The harder she pushed, the stronger the pull.

Margot tumbled upside down, completely losing her sense of gravity. The pearlescent shells shimmered and streaked through her vision. Panic slithered between Margot’s ribs, squeezing, squeezing. Begging for her to find air.

A hand—Van’s, of course—grabbed Margot by the arm and hauled her out of the whirling tide. He kicked them upward, and Margot clung tightly to his grip, afraid to let go, to sink and never be seen again.

They broke the surface, heads ramming against the ceiling. Margot had never tasted air sweeter. Flattening her palms on Van’s shoulders and wrapping her legs around his waist, she fought to hold herself above the waterline.

Bubbles streamed out of Van’s mouth. He kicked furiously beneath the water to keep them afloat. Finally, he managed to say, “Watch it. Your knee’s in my spleen.”

“Did you get it?” Margot asked. “The shard, is it safe?”

He lifted the shard, and momentary relief flooded Margot. Emphasis on the momentary. As the jet pushed gallons of water into the Nymphaeum, their already measly oxygen levels were quickly depleting.

“What do we do?” she asked.

Van bobbed below the surface. When he pushed back up, he said, “That stone I showed you. It’s the shutoff. We have to release it.”

Stretching for the last drops of air, Margot’s hand slipped, limbs all knotted with Van’s. His grip faltered. Waves wrenched the shard from his hand.

The sound of Margot’s shriek was muffled as the undertow jerked her beneath the surface. A current wove through the nymphs, and a riptide wound around Margot’s legs, begging her to join their dance.

No, no, no.

Van dove after the shard, but Margot zeroed in on the jet stream and the stone trigger behind it that engaged the drain valve. With hands clawing at the carved facade, Margot climbed downward. The tide fought every inch, but her focus was solitary. She wouldn’t screw this up.

She slammed her palm against the stones until one sank into the wall. The niche slid open like a door, and a rush of water dragged Margot and Van inward, their arms and legs pretzeling together.

A flash of gold shot past them. The shard.

Van swam after it with renewed energy. Margot, on the other hand, didn’t move with quite as much control.

The chute whipped her around sharp corners like some kind of hellish amusement park waterslide. She kicked harder, trying desperately to catch up with Van as he sped toward the shard. One tunnel turned into two, and she was pretty sure Van propelled down the left side. Margot placed her bet, heading left with heavy arms and legs.

Here, the light from the shells had faded, leaving only darkness. Margot could barely see her hands in front of her face, let alone the fragment of the Vase.

For a terrifying, heart-stopping moment, she was certain she was alone, that Van had left her, and she was going to be sucked into this whirlpool forever. The panic lasted until she rammed into Van, propelled by the blasting current. There was nowhere else she could be. The walls curled around them, too close, and the water hadn’t relented. They’d reached a dead end. Trapped.

Margot banged fists against the walls, panicked. She’d lost the shard, and now she was going to drown, all for nothing.

There had to be another hidden valve around here somewhere. There just had to be. The grit of unpolished stones tore at her skin with every impact. Van joined, each slam of their fists resulting in a dull thud.

Until. A gloriously un-thuddy noise followed as Margot smacked the ceiling again and again. Her hands searched the round grooves, the bumps of words she couldn’t parse by touch alone. It felt like a metal plate, similar to the one that covered the manhole.

Margot’s lungs were going to burst if she didn’t do something. She braced herself against the wall and kicked upward. The plate shot off, and water spewed toward the opening. Margot clawed her way out onto solid ground. A wet cough rattled her chest as Nymphaeum water expelled from her mouth onto beige linoleum tiles. She flopped onto her back, eyes stinging against fluorescent lights.

Van hoisted himself out of the watery depths and lay next to Margot, breathing equally ragged. Sour, he said, “Nice work sticking to the plan.”

“You knew,” Margot sputtered. Each breath was a wet wheeze. She couldn’t convince her lungs to work in the right rhythm again.

“I gave you one task. One.” Van wrung out his shirt, annoyance dripping off every word. “Yes, Van, I can swim. No, Van, I won’t nearly drown us both and make you drop the shard.”

Margot wasn’t sure if she gasped in outrage or just gasped because her body was dying. “You knew!” she spat. “You knew”—another gasp cut through her—“That was going to happen. And—and you didn’t warn me!” Her lungs interrupted again, faster now, like the air was slippery and they couldn’t get traction. “All you said was stay. Stay. We almost drowned. I could have, I could have—”

“Hey,” Van said. Then, firmer: “Hey. You’re hyperventilating.”

She heard him, but his words didn’t sink in. Her hands, feet, face tingled, like every nerve ending was deep-fried and sizzling. Margot was vaguely aware that her chest was rising and falling—fast, too fast—but the edges of her vision blurred, blackened.

Van’s hands grasped her shoulders, leaning so close that Margot stopped breathing entirely. Her central nervous system zapped back to reality. It was like the world came into twenty-twenty vision, the saturation rising and clarity all coming back into focus at once. All she saw, all she cared about, was the green and gold webbing of his irises, the constellation of freckles on his cheeks, and the strong tenor of his voice saying, “Margot, count backwards from one hundred.”

“Ninety-nine, ninety-eight, ninety-seven—”

“I said from one hundred. You skipped it.”

Trance broken. Margot flung Van’s hands off her shoulders. She huffed, “What’s it matter if I skipped it?”

His mouth turned downward. “You can’t start at ninety-nine if you’re counting down from one hundred. That’s illogical.”

Then, someone cleared their throat behind them. “Can I take your order?”

Only then did Margot register the chill of the tile floor they sprawled on, the way everything smelled like grease and salt. Stone walls that probably dated back to the Flavian dynasty gave way to red and yellow booths. Linoleum tables, curiousonlookers, a giant menu boasting Big Macs and large fries.

They’d surfaced in a freaking McDonald’s.

Margot turned to the employee. “Yeah, a McFlurry. He’s paying.”

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