Page 19

Chapter XI

FELIX

W hen all else failed, at least Felix could run.

He craved the physicality of it, the stretch and pull of his muscles. Running created the illusion of progress. If he only ran far enough and fast enough, he could outpace any problem.

He hurtled from the tavern towards the brothel, willing his feet faster, until the snarling irritation Loren had provoked faded to background noise.

Until his rattled nerves stitched back together and he remembered his purpose: shiny silver wings, proof that one thing – this one thing – could be his.

Felix ran until he burst onto the market street and smacked into a street fair.

The cacophony hit him like a wall. Throngs of people occupied the street, laughing and shouting and singing, drunk, spirits high.

Stalls sold spiced wine and honeyed nuts and cheese pastries.

Guards escorted wealthy attendees around clusters of those less fortunate, because even at a street party – the least prestigious of affairs – class lines held firm.

Heavy coin purses dangled from belts. Felix’s fingers twitched with temptation to indulge in his favourite form of stress relief. Screw Loren’s moralising.

He slipped into the party and worked the crowd like clay.

A sleight of hand won him a jewelled hairpin, plucked from the updo of a giggling girl, whose mouth he laughed against before slipping away with a wink.

A conveniently timed cup of wine earned him a wooden-handled knife, poached from the pocket of a wobbly-drunk patrician boy who tried to reel Felix closer by his waist. In another town – in another mood – he might have welcomed the distraction. Dealt with the sticky shame later.

A necklace here, a handful of glass beads there – no one noticed, and why should they? Why notice some dirty street kid brushing past, new clothes or not? He was forgotten the moment he strayed out of reach.

Whatever others thought they saw in Felix – that he was built of bad intentions, that he had stolen the helmet at Mercury’s bidding, that bad fortune chased him – wasn’t true, and this proved it. Felix was nobody. He passed through unseen, a spectator. A spectre.

All of it, the running, the pickpocketing, the eyes skipping over him, should have made him feel like himself again.

But Felix couldn’t melt into it. None of it helped.

A whole pocketful of new treasures couldn’t dull the echo in his brain.

Careless flirting made his skin shrink. His shoulders crept higher, agitation cresting. He wanted . . . he wanted . . .

He wanted to know why Loren looked at him with recognition when other gazes skated past.

Which was exactly why Felix needed to get out of Pompeii before it stole the last of him for good.

Loren had dared to tread too close, plucked at too many of the fraying threads of Felix’s memory.

If Felix pursued the questions lurking in his mind – that Loren knew something about him that Felix didn’t know of himself – Loren might unpick a seam that couldn’t be mended.

But admitting that would break his most important rule, and Loren wasn’t worth the price of belief.

Hemp burned mellow and earthy from nearby sconces, but Felix’s head only ached. Snatching a raisin roll, he slipped down a quiet alley, shaking off the press of the crowd. Phantom hands seemed to crawl over his skin, fingers he couldn’t bat away.

Blank grey eyes met his when he passed by a door.

Felix stilled. A god’s carved stone face stared from the keystone of an arch, framed by a winged helm and a staff wound with twin snakes.

Nonna’s words came back – If Mercury did not want it moved, it would not have been moved .

Superstitious nonsense. He made to move on.

Deep in the recesses of Felix’s mind, a faded memory tugged of too-tight sandals and pockets of coins and bitter, sticky wine. Of that same cold, impassive stare, watching and doing nothing.

Taking a step back, Felix wrenched free from the past, even as wordless chattering picked up, restless voices belonging to no one. The sound was maddening. Relentless. Desperate.

‘This is your fault,’ he found himself saying, though he couldn’t put a finger on what compelled the accusation now. Mercury meant nothing to him. Nothing . ‘Everything is.’

The murmuring stopped, and the memory flitted away.

Felix cursed, to no one in particular. To Mercury, maybe, if he thought for a moment the gods ever listened. Temple-goers could keep their superstition. His devotion belonged to luck, and he created his own.

He’d barely stepped onto an adjacent street when the little girl from Livia’s shop barrelled into him, slamming him against brick.

‘Jupiter, slow down,’ Felix said, rubbing his reeling skull. ‘Late for curfew?’

Aurelia glared, eyes puffy and face shiny with snot and tears. ‘Why weren’t you with him? Where have you been?’

‘Minding my business. Give it a try sometime.’

Snatching his hand, Aurelia tugged. ‘They took Loren away. Hurry, we have to find him.’

Felix dug his heels into cobblestone. ‘If Loren got himself into some shit, he can work his own way out.’

‘I thought you were his friend. He said you were his friend.’

Friend . Even the word set Felix on edge. ‘His mistake.’

Aurelia stomped her foot like the child she was.

‘Listen,’ Felix said, ‘and let this be a lesson to you both. Don’t pick fights you don’t intend to finish. Or learn to run fast. Either way, his problems aren’t mine.’

He turned to leave, but Aurelia drew in a deep, rattling breath and rasped, ‘ Dream-walker. Plane-crosser. ’

Felix froze. Only hours earlier, Nonna had used those same words to describe the helmet thief – a conversation Aurelia, unless she was even sneakier than Felix, hadn’t been privy to.

But Aurelia looked beyond herself. A glazed look washed over her, slackening and shifting her features until she seemed both younger and more ancient than she was.

‘Where did you hear that?’ Felix demanded. Aurelia wobbled, but he caught her shoulders, trying to catch her unfocused gaze.

‘ Escort of the living ,’ she said, lips pale, ‘ and the dead. ’

She was a thousand miles away, the same way Loren’s eyes drifted when he had his episodes.

For a moment, Felix worried her limbs would collapse, leave her jerking on the ground in a fit, like he once witnessed a woman do in Rome.

Felix was a child at the time, and his father was quick to rush him from the scene, whispering that she must have seen more than she should.

That part never made sense to Felix. How could simply seeing something fracture a mind?

Years later, he realised his father meant a different type of seeing .

The kind Felix never allowed himself to think possible.

‘ His hand ,’ Aurelia whispered. ‘ Take his hand. Pull him back .’

Felix’s hair stood on end, a chill rolling down his spine. He snapped his fingers beneath her nose. ‘Aurelia, stop. Stop .’

She blinked, eyes clearing.

Then she kicked his shin .

Pain replaced the chill. ‘You’re a little terror,’ Felix hissed. ‘What did you mean by that? Whose hand?’

But she merely looked confused. It struck Felix that wherever Aurelia had slipped, she hadn’t carried back memories when she resurfaced. Interrogating her would do no good. He knew better than anyone that some memories could not be coaxed out.

‘He’s in danger,’ she said at her normal bratty pitch. ‘Because of you. If you won’t help because he’s your friend, do it for that.’

Felix wanted to protest, wanted to shout that he owed Loren nothing, that Loren could shove his questioning up his arse, and that if he wanted to waste money on food out of pity, it didn’t mean a thing.

Attachment invited vulnerability. Attachment led to a swift end, either of time or freedom, and that mantra had kept Felix alive this far. He wanted to say all that.

But Loren had charged into traffic for him. He’d watched Felix’s failed escape attempts but still trusted him enough to confide secret musings about Achilles. And after dinner, despite Felix lashing out, Loren had followed him – and stumbled right into danger.

Guilt crawled through Felix’s belly. Maybe he did owe Loren a favour. Maybe this could clear their debt.

‘Whatever,’ he said. ‘I’ll make sure he’s safe. But then I am leaving. And you won’t breathe a word of this to him.’

‘Coward,’ said Aurelia. ‘They took my father’s sword. Bring that back, too.’

They crept through alleys, quiet as cats. For all Aurelia’s brashness, at least she was capable of silence when they needed it most. She showed Felix to a walled estate, where they took stock from the shadows. An ox of a man holding a gladius guarded the entrance .

‘That’s one of the men who took Loren,’ Aurelia whispered. ‘I don’t see the other.’

‘What did they want with him?’

‘I attacked. I was too preoccupied staying alive to find out.’

Felix tried to picture Aurelia wielding a weapon against a grown mercenary, but the image was too ridiculous. ‘Where did your father’s sword end up?’

‘Oh,’ Aurelia said brightly. ‘He’s holding it.’

Felix’s eye twitched. ‘Aurelia, look at the size of him. How am I meant to get past?’

‘Around the corner’ – she pointed – ‘the garden wall dips. Even someone short as you shouldn’t have an issue climbing.’

‘My height is average.’ Felix sniffed. ‘You’re shorter than me.’

‘Yes. But I’m twelve. And still growing.’

‘I suppose you aren’t coming?’

‘As you pointed out,’ Aurelia said, ‘it’s past my curfew.’

Felix stepped onto the street. No harm being seen, not yet. Ox Face’s eyes tracked him until he turned the corner and scurried down a side alley.