Page 2

For the first time, Felix noticed the painting dominating the back wall: a conical mountain with steep slopes and Bacchus, god of wine, blessing the fertile soil.

Below writhed a snake. He recognised the mountain as the one north of the city: Vesuvius.

But he wondered what – or who – the snake was meant to represent.

The statesman held up the bottle. ‘Expensive taste. This isn’t your everyday drink.’

Felix knew. That was the point.

His back facing Felix, the statesman popped the cork, and Felix glowered as ruby liquid poured into a pair of silver cups.

Sealed, that bottle could have bought him new sandals.

When the statesman turned, he passed one cup to Felix.

On instinct, Felix brought it to his nose.

Sugar, mostly. Then – an undercurrent of acrid .

‘You dosed this.’ Felix sniffed again. ‘Poppy sap. Lassius wine is sickly sweet. This stinks of bitter.’

‘Well versed in poison?’

‘No.’ Felix set his cup firmly on the tiled floor. ‘I just drink too much.’

‘Clever.’ Wicker and wood creaked as the statesman settled into the chair opposite. In the flickering candlelight, his eyes seemed drained of colour. Reflecting orange flame, but otherwise empty. ‘I’ll admit, the wine was a test. You passed.’

‘I’m not your student.’

‘Too clever for games, I see.’

Felix had the distinct impression he was being mocked. Don’t rise to it . Still, whatever his expression betrayed must have been satisfactory. Amusement tugged the statesman’s lips.

‘Tell me, boy. Do you believe in magic?’

Felix snorted. ‘No. Horseshit.’

The statesman ran his gloved index finger around the rim of his own cup.

Round and around. Unease grew as Felix tracked the movement.

Nails bit into the meat of his palms. He hadn’t realised how tightly he clenched his fists until the sting reminded him to stay in the moment.

He made his trade in details, the cataloguing of them, the weaponising.

Being a thief was about spotting the right details and not letting a stranger distract him with others.

‘Interesting position to take,’ the statesman continued. ‘For you, anyway. Tell me who you studied under. A priest? Which temple?’

‘Couldn’t tell you.’

‘Don’t you remember?’

Felix shifted. The comment teased wounds where the only memories left were scars.

Normally it suited him fine, lacking the ability to remember.

Dwelling on history, fixating on the future – neither pastime kept him alive.

But something about the statesman’s question prodded Felix the same way wicker bands jabbed his sliced calves .

Rich people had the worst furniture.

‘I consider myself a collector,’ the statesman continued. With an arrogant flip of his wrist, he held his cup to the side. Wordlessly, Darius came forward to whisk it away. ‘Land. Items. People, when it suits me. I have a specialised interest.’

‘What does this have to do with me?’

‘Because I saw you in the Forum earlier, casing the temple. Subtle, but I recognised how hungrily you watched the helmet. As if you would die for it. Or worse.’ The statesman’s smile widened.

‘Do you realise how precious that helmet is? Some call it divine, and Pompeiians are a superstitious bunch. They take everything as an omen, and they won’t take news of its disappearance easily, nor exercise clemency when they catch its thief.

But you and I have more in common than you know.

Two wanderers who lost our home, trying to find a way back to it. The helmet can help us both get there.’

Sweat beaded on the nape of Felix’s neck. He itched to demand how a helmet could help reclaim home. How the statesman knew Felix didn’t have a home, not since he fled Rome six years ago, but asking questions would betray what he knew about the helmet, an admission he couldn’t afford.

Besides, this man already had everything, a house and guards and silver cups. The statesman could buy twenty helmets. He could have stolen this helmet himself, then staged its triumphant recovery, if that was what he wanted. Somehow, Felix didn’t think that was the statesman’s goal.

He repeated, ‘Horseshit.’

‘At least entertain my offer before baiting me towards anger, as I’ve humoured you.’

But thieves weren’t humoured. It was a kill-first, question-later lifestyle.

‘Afraid I can’t help you.’ Felix rose, sizing up Darius blocking the exit. ‘My father is waiting for me. ’

The statesman allowed Felix to make it halfway to the door. Then he said, voice the drawl of a lazy predator, ‘Your father is dead.’

Felix stiffened, vision flashing red as bloodied ground. ‘What the fuck would you know about my father?’

His sudden rage distracted him. Seizing the opportunity, Darius lunged and slammed Felix to the ground. He wrenched Felix’s wrists behind his back, shoving his chest against the floor.

‘A fortunate guess.’ The statesman paced to Felix’s front, peering down his nose. ‘You could say I know how to inspire reaction. Where is the helmet?’

‘I don’t know,’ Felix snarled, wriggling pointlessly.

‘You will bring it to me. Bring it to me, and you may leave the city with a full purse. I’ll even give you a horse. Wouldn’t that be a treat?’

‘Liar.’ Felix spat. It landed an inch from the statesman’s leather boot.

The statesman sighed. ‘A different approach, then. Let’s see if my technique works. Once you remember what was taken from you, you’ll be as keen for revenge on Rome as I am.’

Darius hauled Felix to his knees by his tunic for a second time.

By sunrise – if he survived that long – Felix’s knees would be a blue, battered mess.

He felt less than human, teeth bared and chest heaving, but the statesman appeared unconcerned as he knelt before him.

Distantly, he was aware of the statesman peeling off his leather gloves, but he couldn’t tear his eyes from the colourless gaze locking him in place.

‘We’ll be partners,’ said the statesman wistfully. ‘Collaborators. Cassius and Brutus of a new age.’

He cupped Felix’s jaw in his bare hands, and Felix slumped into a dim nothing.

Or not nothing.

He had the strange sensation of . . . falling.

Dragged by a weight, bricks tied to his ankles, he plummeted backwards.

Blood pounded in his ears. Scenes teased him, memories of the night he’d had, told in reverse: cool cobblestones underfoot, smooth silver in his hand.

Earlier, the sour tang of cheap wine while a drunk guard slumped across a table.

Earlier. An open road, stolen wine clinking in his bag.

Earlier, still. Salernum’s city stench. The Lassius vineyard by moonlight.

A thumb prodded Felix’s memory, flipping through scenes of his near past like sifting through a stack of papyrus.

Searching. The sensation was uncomfortable, invasive, a foul mix of foreign and familiar.

It churned his stomach, made him ache to flinch.

He didn’t tolerate touch well on a good day, and this was far from a good day.

Further back. To the time Felix had spent in the south of the empire, considering catching a ferry across the sea to Alexandria before learning the cost outweighed his pockets. He traced his path north in reverse, sleepless nights and heart-pounding chases and scattered roof tiles.

Until, at last, it landed on the road from Rome. There the thumb paused. Contemplated.

But nothing existed beyond that gate, Felix knew. He had lingered in that memory-space enough times to have lost hope of remembering what once dwelt there.

Except – in flashes – twin snakes curling up his father’s forearm. A statue on a dais, pointing to the heavens, hollow-eyed, a man in long robes shuffling near—

The clatter of silver on stone struck the memory down, and Felix opened his eyes.

The statesman’s hand had fallen away. Felix sucked in a breath so full it tore his lungs.

His mind spun. At his side, wine spread across tile, his abandoned cup having tipped over unprompted. The statesman, too, looked shaken .

Then the ground lurched beneath Felix’s knees, and he realised it was the world that was shaking.

Darius’s grip loosened, and Felix scrambled away. Another grab. He was quicker.

He had no idea what was happening, how the statesman had made him lose consciousness, why the world was cracking apart, any of it, but he wasn’t about to waste this chance. He catapulted through the door, into the alley, and sprinted.

Running over angry ground was treacherous. Cobblestones jumped to bite his ankles. Tiles crashed from roofs, shattering in deadly shards. Felix was dimly aware of shouting as the city received this violent awakening, but all that faded to background noise.

Because Darius still chased him. Not even the end of the damn world would shake him off Felix’s tail.

Think. Think . Gods, his legs ached.

Felix had passed a temple on his way into the city yesterday, and he riffled through his mind, trying to pick out the street it stood on.

If he could reach it, he could claim sanctuary.

Time spent in any temple had never served his goals before – had compromised them, most often – but the attendants inside would be bound by ancient laws to honour that claim.

All he had to do was survive long enough to get there.

Up ahead, a heavy wooden door beckoned Felix forward. He leaped up the few short stairs, slammed through the unlocked door and prayed for the first time in years that someone was inside.

He found himself in an open-air courtyard, surrounded by a portico of marble columns and painted frescoes. An altar, bowl absent, jutted from packed dirt, and the temple’s inner chamber, the cella, loomed in the centre .

Empty. Damn.

Barefoot and bloody, his pulse thrummed. He trained his eyes on the door, waiting for Darius to barrel through. He envisioned iron arcing through air, a deadly downward crescent. One step back. Two.

Light spilled in a crisp, golden streak. A sharp intake of breath from behind.

Felix wasn’t alone as he’d thought.

He turned. At the top of the cella’s steps, a tall figure had frozen, half silhouetted in the glow of the open door.

A veil obscured the lower part of their face.

Felix’s eyes fell onto long, elegant fingers clutching a bronze bowl.

He tottered. For a brief, bleary second, he was certain he was in the company of a god.

But no. Impossible. Felix rejected the thought as soon as it passed, for the same reason he refused to dwell on what the statesman had done to his mind.

Both broke Felix’s most vital rule of all: magic isn’t worth the cost of belief.

Still, Felix stared, transfixed, as the figure descended the stairs, each footfall a sharp echo in the silent courtyard. He hardly dared breathe lest it shatter the spell.

The stranger whispered, ‘Not you.’

Then the bronze bowl crashed against the side of Felix’s head.