The next morning, we woke up docked outside Delphi. The cries of seagulls and the light metallic ting of ropes hanging off the sailboats bobbing alongside our yacht normally would have been calming, but I was too tense to even eat breakfast. The bracelet had to be here, or we were finished.
We headed inland, where the air was arid and hot. I’d imagined Greece green and tropical, but the part of the country near Delphi wasn’t like that at all. Gnarled shrubbery and rocky outcroppings gave way to spring grass dotted with modestly sized pines and olive trees, with sage green leaves and twisted trunks straight out of a fairy tale. Towns dotted the hillsides, all whitewashed walls and red roofs.
At the Oracle site, I thought there’d be a single temple, but built into the dramatic hillside were ruins of several temples and a large amphitheater. We had a way bigger area to search than I’d anticipated.
When we got out of the cab, Stellan touched my arm. “There’s a car that looked like it was tailing us,” he murmured. “Stay close.”
I cursed under my breath. It wouldn’t be my father’s people, so if someone was following us now, it was the Order. “Luc?” I said. He was ahead of us, standing in the shade of an olive tree with Jack.
“I told him, too. He’ll be careful.”
I glanced over my shoulder, but all I saw was a tour bus with a stream of elderly people climbing on. “Let’s go, then.”
Colette and Elodie had already gone one way, toward a circular temple with just a few columns still standing that seemed to be on all the tourist brochures. The rest of us spread out around the main temples. Stellan stuck close to Luc, and they headed up the hill to an amphitheater, while Jack and I scrambled down a fall of white stones gone gray with age and onto the foundation of a mostly destroyed structure.
The temple was fenced off with a single rope running along the edge of the path. Since there was no one else around, we stepped over it. Spears of bright green grass pierced the stone, like the earth thought the temple was part of it now, after all these years. It was eerily quiet. I glanced back toward the parking lot before kneeling down and inspecting one of the columns. “Where would he have hidden a bracelet? This place is huge.”
“I would assume one of two possibilities,” Jack said. “He could have buried it, in which case we’re looking for a marker or the entrance to a tunnel. Or he could have hidden it inside something. A secret space in one of these columns, maybe?”
We combed every inch of the temple. I crawled between stones, dirtying the knees of my jeans, looking with my hands as much as my eyes for anything that seemed out of place. The whole time, I watched for anyone coming too close. A couple with a baby walked by once, and another time I thought a couple guys in touristy Greece T-shirts may have been watching us from a nearby path, but they stayed a good distance away. Maybe Stellan had been wrong about the car.
Finally, I sat back on my heels and wiped the back of my hand across my forehead. “I haven’t seen anywhere it looks like we should dig.”
Jack sat on part of the stone wall. “Agreed.”
“Hello!” came a voice from above. I shielded my eyes against the scorching midday sun to see Luc at the next level up, waving happily. “Any luck?”
“No,” I called. I peered off across the site, at another temple just past a wide stone amphitheater, and saw movement. One of the guys in the tourist T-shirts had just ducked behind a scrubby tree, closer now.
“Did you see that?” I said.
Jack stood up, on automatic alert. “What?”
“Some guys have been watching us. One of them just hid when I looked at him.”
Jack’s brow crinkled, and he stepped in front of me protectively.
I looked behind us. “Luc!” I gestured for him to get down. He was about as exposed as possible, standing on that ledge.
“Come up here and look before we go,” Luc called back. “I see baby goats in a field!”
“Luc!” I repeated, gesturing frantically. Jack clambered up the rocks toward him, and I followed, but Stellan must have heard the fear in my voice, because he suddenly appeared, bundling Luc away. Jack climbed over the cliff ahead of me and reached back to pull me up, but I hesitated, peering at where the guy had gone. I didn’t see him anymore.
“Avery!” Jack said, and I let him help me up the rocks and behind some columns.
“What did you see?” Stellan said quietly.
“These two guys. I swear they’ve been watching us.” I peered out again, but besides a tour group led by an older lady carrying a yellow flag, I didn’t see anybody. “Maybe I’m just going crazy. Did you see anything?”
Jack shook his head, and Stellan did, too.