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Chapter I

FELIX

F elix robbed the Temple of Apollo just before dawn.

Temples were embarrassingly easy. Bolts of fine fabrics, sacks of coins, baskets of cherries left to rot – any thief worth his salt knew it was fair game.

Nothing fun about it. So unchallenging, in fact, that the afternoon before, following a quick scout, Felix almost looked the other way. Moved on.

Until he spotted Apollo’s treasure: a shiny silver helmet unguarded on a plinth and begging to wear Felix’s fingerprints all over it. A feeling far stronger than want sparked in his gut, a magnetic pull to an item that’d buy him a damn palace if he rolled his dice right.

No question about it. Felix would own the helmet.

At a tavern, he challenged the temple’s guard to a drinking game until the man slipped into a wine-thick slumber. Afterwards, edging daybreak, Felix crept into the temple, snatched the helmet and strolled out. Too easy.

In retrospect, he should have realised much sooner that he was being followed.

Two streets from the Forum, muffled footsteps fell in sync with his. Fine. Felix could shake them. He picked up the pace. When the soft schnick of a gladius drawn from its sheath split the night air, he moved a little faster .

Felix had spent less than a day in Pompeii, but like any good Roman town, it was laid out in a grid.

It didn’t matter if he took two detours or ten, the side streets would spit him out onto the main road eventually.

His sandals slapped against uneven cobblestones.

Novice move. Every thief knew the best work was accomplished barefoot, in silence.

But this was supposed to be an easy job.

In, out, on the road. Let the city lament its stolen treasure when Felix was already halfway to Herculaneum.

Damn it. Ducking into an alley, Felix spared half a second to kick off his sandals.

His only pair, but not worth more than his hands.

Or his neck. Once he sold the silver, he’d replace them.

That was the elegance of rejecting sentimentality.

If you never got attached, losing things was just that. Simple.

Cradling the helmet under his arm, Felix set off again, footfalls whisper-quiet.

His plan should have worked. He’d pulled off trickier heists with far more to lose.

Like the other week, when he stole half a dozen bottles of top-shelf wine from the Lassius vineyard south of the city.

Felix had made a decent profit hawking them in Salernum’s market before guards chased him from the town.

Really, it wasn’t fair. Reselling wasn’t a crime per se.

Speaking of wine – Felix made another detour to grab his satchel, stashed in an alcove. Salernum’s guards may have taken his earnings, but he still had one bottle left, and he intended to cash in on it.

Then he dashed for the city wall. A giddy, hushed laugh bubbled in his chest, a burgeoning high from the thrill of the game. Damn, he was good at this.

Right then, bare feet flying over stone in a backwater city he never had to see again, Felix had no past. He had no future.

He had that moment. It was exactly enough .

But all the luck Felix’s name promised him ran out at the gate.

As though he’d read Felix’s mind, a bulky man waited under the archway leading out of Pompeii, a scarlet cape dripping from his shoulders.

Not a city guard; the officer Felix had drunk with wore muted brown.

This was some patrician’s private guard, the type desperate to do their master’s dirty work, even when it broke the law.

Hoping against hope the guard hadn’t seen him, Felix turned and picked a different path.

Time for a new plan. He was good at that, shifting strategies as easily as slipping coins from a pocket.

If he ever took an apprentice – perish the thought, children made him uncomfortable – Felix would teach the core rules the way his da’ had taught him.

Rule one, of course, was: don’t love anything you can’t stand to lose.

Rule two: know when to quit the chase.

Felix wouldn’t make it out of Pompeii this morning.

But he could stash the helmet for now, reclaim it when a sword-wielding guard wasn’t dogging his heels.

A trio of crates sat tucked down an alley.

He prised the lid off one and found it full of milled grain.

But when he settled the helmet inside, he hesitated.

Grain spilled between the twin metal wings framing a sharp nose plate and hollow eyes.

An uncanny sensation of recognition washed over him.

Like those eyes had stared him down before, but he couldn’t place where. When.

Felix shook the feeling off and focused on his real connection to the helmet – what it could buy.

His hands had never held value like this.

The helmet was his ticket to the next ten towns, and that meant staying alive another few months.

It meant bread in his belly that he’d bought instead of stolen, or a bed of his own where he didn’t feel the discomfort of another’s body so near.

Watching wheat swallowing silver swooped his stomach the same way dropping from a height did .

If only his father could see Felix now, mourning what he’d only held for just a moment.

‘I’ll be back,’ Felix swore.

The helmet, buried in grain, offered no reply.

Replacing the cover and brushing off his hands, he strolled back onto the main road.

He only made it two blocks before the point of a sword met the nape of his neck.

‘To your knees.’

When Felix didn’t obey, the guard swiped his blade across the back of Felix’s calves, the pain so startling he collapsed.

Blood trickled from the twin cuts, sluicing through the dust on his legs in slick, sticky rivers.

A half-formed thought crossed his mind – that he should crawl away – but he wouldn’t make it a foot before the guard’s blade found a different place to slice.

A large hand wrapped around Felix’s throat from behind and tightened.

‘How did you take the helmet?’ the guard demanded.

Felix struggled. Seemed the wrong question to ask. Wouldn’t a more productive one be—

‘ Where is the helmet?’

‘Don’t know what you mean,’ Felix wheezed. The grip constricted. He clawed any skin he could reach, aimed an elbow and missed spectacularly. Useless. White spots, then—

Freedom. Felix slumped, palms pressed to the cobblestones, chest heaving.

‘You’ll come with me,’ the guard said.

He didn’t leave Felix with a choice. He dragged him up by his tunic. Breath hot in Felix’s ear, the guard muttered, ‘Make noise and I’ll gut you. Leave your body to stink in the streets.’

Felix swallowed hard, dread coiling his nerves.

The guard pushed and prodded him to a different section of the city.

Cobblestones changed colour, worn grey shifting to modern red.

The villas here were newer, gated and walled, a sure sign this was the wealthy part of town.

Only society’s richest could afford this degree of privacy, walls clean of graffiti, no vulgar anatomical artwork to be seen.

They halted before one of the larger houses, but the guard didn’t usher Felix through the front gate.

Instead, he was marched down a side street to the servants’ entrance.

Candlelight illuminated the small chamber Felix was shoved into.

An alcove in the wall held a pair of carved ivory statues, a dancer and a jester.

They must be the household gods. Lares, symbols of the owner’s values, home protectors and other things Felix didn’t waste his breath or coin on.

He didn’t know which minor deities this pair represented.

In the dim light, the jester’s grin stretched into a leer, and the dancer’s limbs were pulled too long, like misshapen dough. Felix shivered away.

‘Drop your bag, thief,’ the guard said.

Felix’s lip curled. ‘I didn’t take anything. But if this is how you handle petty theft, I’d hate to see you deal with a real criminal.’

His satchel was ripped off his shoulder and upended. Cherries and coins – so what if he dipped into the stash when he scouted the temple that afternoon? – scattered across tile. Felix’s last bottle of wine rolled out like an accusation.

Felix stifled a wince. ‘All mine. Mine before.’

Brow raised, the guard picked a ring of skeleton keys from the mess. Shit .

‘I apprentice with a locksmith.’

‘Right.’ The keys clanked as the guard tossed them to the side. ‘Now explain the wine.’

‘Plan on interrogating me over everything in my bag? You’re in for a long night.’

‘Not an interrogation,’ a cool voice said. ‘Thank you, Darius. I will take it from here. ’

A figure leaned against the wall, his arrival so sudden and silent he might have materialised from shadow.

For such an early hour, he was immaculately dressed, tunic pressed, tall boots laced.

Leather gloves encased his hands. A badge glinted at his shoulder, a crest of a swooping hawk.

Some kind of statesman, a politician or patrician.

‘So this is the thief,’ the statesman said. ‘Have a seat.’

‘Not a thief,’ Felix muttered. But the statesman merely smiled, impassive.

Felix’s skin crawled, the hair on his arms standing on end.

This was the sort of man who looked as though he’d never held a strong opinion in his life.

Those men, in Felix’s experience, were the most dangerous.

No commitment to any one cause, they’d change their mind on a whim if the outcome suited them better.

Darius the guard retreated to the door, stance casual but sword still drawn.

Felix sat on the edge of a wicker chair and chanced a glance around. He’d have to brave Darius to slip outside, and diving through the other door would only suck him deeper into a strange house. He wouldn’t get out of this by force, at least not yet.