“Says this is the Temple of Apollo,” he said over his shoulder.

The girl lingered among the ruins, her figure moving back and forth amid the rough-hewn marble and barren rock. Finally, she bent to pick up a small stone and whipped it over her head into the cypress trees below. She stopped as if waiting for some sound of it. Shane knew she couldn’t be any more than 19. Maybe 20.

She pointed to the trace of sea stretched blue against the horizon.

“The sailors and kings would come here from hundreds of miles, just to see the Oracle.”

“Why?”

“For the truth, of course!” she said with a wave of her arms. “This used to be the centre of the world!”

“Hard to believe. It’s like a ghost town out here.”

“Ghost town?”

“Ghosts. You know. Dead people.”

The girl stared at him blankly for a moment like some delicate statue, then turned on that megawatt smile.

They’d driven a rental up into the mountains to walk the ruins of Delphi, only a few tourists and golden eagles to dot the landscape and keep them company. He was surprised how sharp her English was despite that beguiling Greek accent — that spark of the Old World dancing off her tongue as he drove along and let the last reservation fade away.

“I came here so many times as a child,” she said almost to herself. “There was so much magic up here. Like the gods were watching.” She looked at him with a shake of her head. “But somehow, I don’t know. It doesn’t seem the same anymore.”

“No, no, don’t say that,” he said. “This place is fantastic.”

Shane slipped off his sunglasses. According to the guidebook, Apollo built his shrine back in the 4th century B.C. A sanctuary for his priestesses to dispense their advice. Fire destroyed his first temple. An earthquake took another. Shane ran his hand along the wreckage of the massive altar, its ancient surface scarred with the names of Clark and Christine and a dozen other faceless travellers. It seemed even the endurance of the gods had reached its limits.

He was struggling to find a little stamina himself. The two of them had been clambering over the uneven stone for what seemed like hours, along the empty Stadium, through the Temple of Athena, down into the still confines of the Museum. The sullen bronze statues of Apollo waiting in every hallway like sentries. Apollo, Odysseus, each sculpture looked just like the last. And out here, the worn foundations lined the stony plain like so many vague outlines of the dead.

At first, Shane had tried to read her mind as they walked, picture the thoughts of ancient princes and chariots and hands raised, beseeching to the sky. Now he would give anything to get her back to the car, the heaven of his air-conditioned suite.

The girl came behind Shane and put her head on his shoulder to read along as the sun beat down on him, the ruins towering over their heads in wide sweeping shadows.

“My father used to bring my brother and I up here sometimes,” she said, “He was always scaring us! He said he’d leave us to the Oracle if we were bad.”

“And were you bad?”

She giggled, ran her fingers up the back of his neck.

“What do you think?”

A few days ago, he’d caught the 509 bus from Kifissia, taken the half hour’s drive into Drossia. He’d stopped at a small ice cream parlour called Venezia to take a breather from his solitary trek. She was standing there as he entered, chatting along with her co-worker — maybe about the dreary Bobby Vinton music playing overhead or the promise of adventure at the clubs that night-before spotting him, getting down to business. She wiped her bare arms with her apron and took his order, offered his pistachio flavoured cone across the counter. But there was nowhere to hide from that smile. He’d gestured for her to come closer and the girl leaned forward, taking his invitation. Shane took his napkin and cleaned a trace of ice cream from her chin, her cheeks turning a sudden shade of crimson.

When they started laughing, her hand went to her mouth. And he reached for his ring underneath the worn Formica counter — tucked it neatly away. Buried it back at his hotel suite beneath his Gucci shirts and lone suitcase and their eager cries. Until it was time to revive it once more.

There was still another day or so before the flight back to Atlantic City. Another thirty-two hours, wasn’t there? There just had to be.

Please.

She sank her lips deep into his ear.

“You’ll take me with you, right?”

He turned, swept the hair from her upturned face.

“Please, Shane ... ?”

“Of course,” he said, looking down into her eyes.

Shane bent to kiss her open mouth, but stopped at the sound of raised voices. A middle-aged couple came into view behind them and stood framed in the archway. They climbed the ragged marble steps, a woman with a pinched face and designer outfit dragging a sun beaten man along behind her like so much baggage. She took a moment to rip into him, her American accent cold and lethal among the ruins. And the sun beaten man stood very still beside her. His face drawn, helpless in the light.

Shane looked around him as the sun shifted behind the clouds.

The daylight drained away, the ruined temple losing the pale glories of Olympus, taking on the desolate shades of a tomb. His body began to shiver.

“It’s getting cold,” Shane said, steering her away. “Want to go back to the hotel?”

The girl didn’t answer.

But she smiled, her eyes glowing with the fires of Apollo.