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Chapter XII

LOREN

L oren wished he was surprised when he blinked awake – not awake – at the edge of the world, but the novelty of his dreams had worn off many years and many horrors ago.

Darkness pooled thick, stars blotted out, moon absent. Hot wind whipped through empty space, cascading off the cliff edge he toed. Jagged white spires rose like teeth from the black yawn below, the open jaw of a beast. A red storm raged over a peak in the distance. This place was barren. Lifeless.

‘Why did you bring me here?’ Loren asked the hopeless silence.

‘You tell me. This is your dream,’ said a voice from behind.

Loren may as well have been stabbed again, the way his breath punched from his lungs.

The last thing he’d expected was for Ghost-Felix to answer.

And it was Felix’s voice, Loren didn’t need to turn to see, even if the ghost spoke through flat, hollow vowels, and not in the real Felix’s knife-sharp cadence. The dissonance squeezed his heart.

Ghost-Felix edged nearer until he stood beside Loren, a careful distance apart. He stared blankly through unhappy eyes, his body faded like over-laundered linen. Hissing steam pooled around bare, bloody feet.

He held the hilt out. An olive branch.

When Loren didn’t accept, the ghost let it slip from his fingers. Striking the cliff’s edge, it bounced, then fell in a deadly spiral down, down. Loren didn’t hear it hit the bottom.

‘Bring the helmet,’ Ghost-Felix rasped, ‘and I’ll do more than tell you. I’ll show you.’

Loren made to protest, tried to cry that the helmet was cursed and dangerous and he’d never put that power in this Felix’s hands, but the ghost stepped forward and words evaporated.

The earth trembled. Another step. An arm’s length away.

Less. Their chests were nearly pressed, noses brushing.

Empty heat flooded the gap. Still, Ghost-Felix didn’t touch.

For his part, Loren’s shivers turned to shakes. He wanted to press his mouth to Felix. He wanted to cast him over the edge. He wanted to follow all the way down.

The ghost breathed, ‘If you want to stop this, come and find me.’

The seam of the black sky tore, and ash, again, rolled out.

Loren woke with his lungs burning. He whipped to look across, neck straining, only to find smooth sheets. The bed looked unslept in. Unsurprisingly, Felix was gone.

Or not. Loren’s darting eyes landed on worn sandals. Felix had been so delighted to recover them the other day, his only pair, that Loren couldn’t imagine him abandoning them here. Something eased in his chest. He knew he shouldn’t, but he took it as a sign Felix planned to return.

Fool. When had Loren started hoping for any future moment together, no matter how brief? Two nights ago – when Loren turned the knife on the ghost – he would have done anything to be rid of Felix. Anything to protect his city.

That was then. Now, Loren had shared bread with Felix. He’d seen Felix’s clever mind at work, shown him the places his visions doomed to destruction, confessed secret wants to him. And Felix listened. The prospect of him dying after all that struck Loren in entirely new places.

How could this be the same boy as the ghost haunting Loren all these years?

‘Idiot,’ he said out loud for good measure. He smoothed his braid before ducking from the room. The dream cast one reminder into sharp relief: time was running out. Two more days until his bargain with Felix expired, and Loren had to let him go. Two days until he lost his chance to prove himself.

Julia expected him for breakfast in the garden, but surely she wouldn’t mind if he poked around first. After all, if he agreed to her offer, the place would belong to him soon.

He sidestepped down a different hall in search of her study.

During the day, the house was less desolate, but still so curiously empty.

Each room he stuck his head into, servants’ quarters and kitchens, storage rooms and lounges, held nothing but dust and cloth-draped furniture.

Aside from a snoring Gus stationed outside what must be Julia’s wing, not a soul stirred.

The door to the study had been left ajar, and after a furtive glance around, Loren slipped inside.

Of all the rooms he’d examined, this struck him as the most lived-in.

Shelves held pyramids of papyrus scrolls, and Julia’s white palla lay tossed over a chair.

A candle burning on the windowsill suggested she had been working recently.

No time to waste. He couldn’t be caught. Julia didn’t know he was here about the helmet, and asking her directly would set off alarm bells. His investigation required subtlety.

He rushed for the desk and began digging.

Letters and scrolls and neat stacks of parchment – but no luck.

No convenient dispatches from the council, no notes detailing Umbrius’s plan.

Not even a journal entry with her agenda.

That would be too easy. His gaze slid to the work she’d been doing: a wax tablet, etched with legalese, next to flattened parchment.

Loren’s father used to do this too, spend hours shut in his study, copying over language to construct water-tight contracts not even the wriggliest of creatures could slip through.

The comparison tasted of oversweet wine.

But that was the core of a life in trade or politics.

Here or back in his family villa, it didn’t matter; Loren’s future would always lie in an office.

At least with Julia – if he agreed – it would be an office of his choice, where people would listen.

Not only about politics, but his visions. Maybe they’d even believe him.

No. Loren shook off the selfish fantasy and tugged the cord around his neck. He was here for the helmet. He hadn’t lied to Felix about that. If Pompeii survived the next two days, maybe he could entertain the rest of Julia’s offer.

‘I would have shown you if you’d asked,’ said Julia. Loren bolted upright. She smirked from the doorway, bearing a wine cup. ‘Oh, relax. I’m not angry. It’s your contract, after all.’

Her tone was teasing, but the rest of her sighed exhaustion.

Her same lavender gown from the night prior sagged on her frame.

Golden hair tumbled free from pins, circles heavy below her eyes.

If she’d slept, she didn’t show it. The servants of Julia’s estate should have attended to her by now.

Loren’s mother would never be caught so dishevelled.

‘I was looking for you,’ Loren said carefully, inching back. ‘You weren’t in the garden.’

Julia arched a brow and swept over to blot ink off a drying stylus. ‘I’d respect your answer more if you admitted to nosing around. Tell me honestly, Loren. A stranger whisks you away in the dark, promises to make your ambitions a reality – it’s what I would do in your position.’

‘I haven’t agreed.’ Still, something eased in his chest.

‘Not yet.’ Her eyes gleamed, and she fetched a wrapped package tucked under her palla. ‘I took the liberty of having clothing delivered for you. Expensive at such short notice, believe me, but I won’t have you dressed in common garb, not today.’

Loren accepted the bundle and undid the hemp string. Inside the packaging lay a butter-yellow tunic. Intricate embroidered flowers of red and blue decorated the neck and sleeves. He flipped the hem to find an unfamiliar stitch pattern. Not one of Livia’s creations.

‘It’s beautiful.’ Loren bit back a curl of guilt. ‘But— ’

‘If you plan to protest every gift, I fear you’ll run out of breath. Go on, there’s more.’

Taking care not to crease the linen, Loren set aside the tunic. Next, he unfolded a crisp white sheet. His eyes widened. ‘A toga?’

She’d busied herself uncorking a jug, but he caught a hint of a proud smile. ‘Your first, I assume.’

Instead of answering, Loren smoothed his hand down the wool. Togas were reserved for full Roman men, and in Pompeii, he straddled that uncomfortable line between citizen and not. That was the thing about leaving your identity behind: you lost all it came with, too.

By gifting him this toga, Julia proclaimed, unspeaking, that she took Loren seriously on his own merit – the first person to since he arrived in Pompeii. Perhaps even the first in his whole life. The Temple of Isis hadn’t. His parents certainly hadn’t.

He didn’t realise his grip had tightened, crumpling fistfuls of white, until Julia uncurled his hands from the fabric.

‘As my heir,’ she said, neatly swapping the toga for a cup of wine, ‘and thus my representative, I would prefer if you didn’t wrinkle your toga hours before our appearance at the games.

You’ll forge connections today. No better place to discuss politics.

We’ll sit in the box and eat expensive meats.

And Jupiter knows Pompeii needs some fun before half her citizens abandon her, gods help this corrupt town.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t tempted to leave myself. ’

Loren frowned at the drink Julia handed him, the knot in his stomach twisting afresh. He hated when people spoke of the city this way, as if Pompeii were in her death throes. It felt like a joke everyone was in on but him, while he frantically tried to stop the punchline from landing.

‘Pompeii presses on,’ he said tightly. He couldn’t help the defensiveness from slipping out, but regret followed swift when her mouth slackened. ‘Sorry, my lady. That was out of turn. ’

‘Don’t apologise,’ she said. ‘I value your counsel. And call me Julia. Goodness, even my servants aren’t this deferential.

Just the other day, Clovia had the nerve to suggest I need a good .

. . Ah. Inappropriate anecdote. She thinks I ought to seek a suitor.

Marry.’ Her nose wrinkled, and she paced to the other side of the desk.

Loren gaped.