There was a second crack, somewhere behind me. It sounded like a shot, not like the guns yesterday, but a pistol shot, and beneath my feet the ice dipped a little, just a small movement, and when I looked down a little water was rolling onto the ice, but I couldn’t see the break. David was closer now, running flat out, his feet sending up flurries. We were converging, but I could not tell who would get there first. My feet were barely touching the surface. I was hurtling forward, now over the black ice. But I was always on thin ice, always waiting for the grasping embrace of the permanent cold, the always dark. At least now I was running.

My luck was in. The ice held, and then I was nearing the far bank. I was going to win. David had lost ground.

The bank ahead was steep. I jumped, landing in snow that was deep under a thin crust and I floundered, losing my footing, but pushing on, David only a few meters away. I might have still beaten him, but at my next step my foot kept on going and I felt my ankle roll over to one side and then a nauseating stab of pain. I struggled up, snow pouring from me, but my ankle wouldn’t take my weight, so I could only hop and then hobble forward.

David trotted up the temple steps and over to the head of Athena. For a second, he looked puzzled. The necklace wasn’t there. Not on the plinth, not around the statue’s neck. His fingers traveled over her face, over the blind stone eyes, and then they nipped in and plucked something from the dark open mouth. The necklace came out black with leaf mold and dirt.

David turned to face me, rubbing the necklace between his palms. He was breathing hard too, and we stood there looking at one another.

“I won,” he said.

“I guess you did.”

“How was the ice?”

“A bit bouncy,” I said.

His gaze fell on me gently, and he took a quick step forward, and then stopped to look over my shoulder. I turned and saw the others coming up the path, Marcus at the front and Rob bringing up the rear.

“He got there first?” Priss asked. I nodded.

“You nearly died out there on the ice and he still got there first?” Rob said. “Oh that’s just priceless.”

“Win some, lose some,” I said.

“Spoken like a loser.”

But I was glad of his prattle, and for the fuss Zack and Priss and Alice made of David. It made less of Marcus’s silence. Em and Peter were not saying anything either.

“You both worked it out at the same time,” Alice said. Her eyes flicked between us suspiciously.

“No, he was first.”

“So how did you—”

“I kind of just knew. It was a good hiding place,” I said.

“It was,” Em said, but the look she gave me was strange. “But it’s not—”