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Chapter XIII

FELIX

D itching sandals to silence an approach only worked if the target wasn’t waiting in anticipation.

Dawn streamed thin over Pompeii, and no sooner had Felix turned onto the street of the seamstress’s shop than a flash of curls disappeared from the upstairs window.

He carried the sword of Aurelia’s father, having reclaimed it from the belt of Julia’s snoring guard.

Unsheathed, it glinted flat and grey in the morning light.

Too old to fetch much coin – so what if Felix considered pawning it rather than returning it?

– but the fantasy died when Aurelia barrelled through the door.

Only his growing familiarity with how she never acted by half reminded him to stand back.

‘Where is he?’ Aurelia demanded.

‘Morning to you, too,’ he said, dodging a shin kick.

‘Don’t joke.’ Hair a thundercloud, frizzy and falling from its braid, she looked a puffy-eyed mess.

Felix wondered if she slept at all, or if nightmares had her tossing all night.

He remembered her episode in the alley, her glazed expression and grave pronouncements, forgotten the moment she said them, but Felix didn’t know where to begin questioning her .

She was strange. Strange as Loren. No wonder the two got along.

Sighing, Felix relented. ‘He’s fine. Didn’t need me. Didn’t need either of us.’

‘Not true. Mamma says we all need each other.’

‘For some, that’s hard to admit.’

Aurelia stared dead-on. ‘Some like you?’

Felix felt again that odd effect, the same one Loren had on him, that his skin had turned invisible, and his vitals were exposed. He itched to cover up despite being dressed. Slowly, he said, ‘Part of my trade is working alone. I’m a thief, not a smuggler.’

‘That’s not it. I think thieves are the loneliest of us all.’ Aurelia sniffed, then snatched the sword and slammed the door in his face.

For a long moment, Felix stood in the street, trying not to feel the press of her words. The loneliest of us all. Aurelia didn’t know the first thing about what loneliness meant.

Or what the alternative could cost him.

He took the long way back to Julia’s, hoping Loren was still asleep so Felix could creep back into bed like he’d never left. A first for him. Anything to avoid a confrontation.

But as he came around the corner, a swathe of scarlet motion at the far end of the alley stopped him in his tracks. Apprehension flooded his veins. He had seen that colour before in Pompeii. Red dye, especially a shade so vibrant, cost a pretty penny.

Felix knew one man who could afford it.

Footsteps light, he clung to the shade as he approached the main road.

He leaned out past the bricks, only enough to see the same scarlet cape turn a corner.

Shit. Last time Felix saw that profile, he’d been at the other end of an arcing blade.

Darius, the statesman’s guard – the man rapidly becoming Felix’s least favourite Pompeiian – was lurking in the early daylight in a part of the city he didn’t belong to.

Something was off .

His nerves prickled. Did the statesman know Felix had stayed at Julia’s?

Had he dispatched Darius to break into the estate?

Part of Felix itched to follow him. Itched for another glance at the statesman, to try – futilely – to place him in his blank memory.

He gripped the wall, chewed his tongue, teetered.

But something dark twisted in his gut, a sense of disquiet, scratching his brain and calling him to Julia’s house. Felix needed to check. To see. He hadn’t survived these terrible days in this terrible city for Loren to die by some guard’s hands.

He headed for the estate.

Where he found Clovia, bobbing in the water, purple welts around her neck.

Later, Felix watched from the shadows as Loren left for the amphitheatre, escorted by Julia and her guards.

Conflict clashed in Felix’s chest, the urge to keep watch on Loren warring with the need to gather proof.

Felix was in no position to accuse Darius of murder, not to Julia.

Pointing fingers never worked in a thief’s favour. Usually, it got them cut off.

His initial assumption, that Darius targeted the estate because the statesman knew Felix was there, no longer struck him as right.

Not after witnessing Julia’s reaction, her knowing gaze and cool confidence that Felix hadn’t killed Clovia.

Like she’d expected it. Like it had happened before.

Darius had wanted to be caught, wanted the murder to be recognised.

Felix recalled the press of Darius’s fingers around his neck and the bitter stink of poppy sap the statesman poured.

Those marks on Clovia’s body screamed of a signature style. A message.

There was a connection between the statesman and Julia, and Loren had tripped into a worse mess than Felix thought.

That’s why Felix needed proof. To convince Loren that Julia’s danger wasn’t worth any information she could offer about the damn helmet.

Unless he cut ties with her, it’d be Loren’s body, drenched in bruised poppy, that Felix found next.

Not that Felix cared. He only wanted to get back on track, so when he left the city he could make a clean break. No lingering regrets. No ghosts.

Then Loren looked over his shoulder one last time, familiar mouth pinched, before the crowd swallowed them, and Felix’s stomach fluttered. Worry, or something like it, reordered his priorities.

He didn’t care for the sensation at all.

Felix left the estate too, in the opposite direction.

The streets brimmed with people ambling towards the festivities. Spirits ran high, voices jubilant. Everyone would be there, craving a break from Pompeii’s recent sour luck. Felix banked on it – though for once, he wasn’t escaping. Not when he had a point to prove.

No one noticed him moving against the flow.

Again, he ditched his sandals to grab later, then followed changing bricks onto a too-familiar street.

Ignoring the front gate, he made for the side door he’d entered before.

He twisted the hairpin he’d pinched from last night’s party in the lock until it clicked and the door swung free.

The fresco of Vesuvius, in all her grape-crowned, writhing-snake glory, welcomed Felix into the statesman’s lararium.

The lares posed in their alcove, begging for gifts and gold.

Spilled wine had dried into a sticky purple smear across the floor.

Even days later, Felix still felt cold tile bruising his knees, the cradle of his jaw in the statesman’s hands.

But that was the past. He shouldn’t think about the past. Swallowing, he moved away.

Silence reigned. A pin would echo from across the house if there’d been another soul to drop one. Secrets thrived here, Felix could taste them. Dangerous secrets. He wished he had the knife he’d stolen, a meagre defence, but when he checked his pocket, it had vanished. Lost. Damn.

Picking a corridor at random, he began his search.

The next door he tried was locked, too, but not for long. With a smirk, he slipped the hairpin away and pushed forward.

His grin died quickly.

Jupiter and Juno, this room held a lot of shit. The statesman called himself a collector. Hoarder was a better word. Felix’s fingers flexed. It would be a thief’s perfect cache, a smuggler’s wet dream, if it didn’t ring so . . . wrong .

Gingerly, Felix stepped over the threshold.

Tables against the wall groaned under tons of bronze and silver trinkets, and mounds of discarded treasure dominated the floor.

Stacked towers of dull cups, clusters of leering statues.

Shields, crowns, a scythe. He picked up a sword coated in rust or blood, stomach lurching.

The room buzzed with a frenetic energy he couldn’t source, and it vibrated to his fingertips, a building static charge.

One wrong touch, and he’d light the place up.

Worst were the helmets. Empty-eyed, they glared from every angle. Shiny helmets, crushed helmets, gore-spattered helmets. All these, and the statesman still wanted the helmet Felix had stolen. The one stashed in Loren’s laundry bag. The one the statesman was willing to pay for. Kill for.

Whispering tickled Felix’s ears, more wordless chatter.

The sensation of being watched, eyes dragging down his body, set off gooseflesh on his arms. Delicately, he replaced the sword and backed away, nerves strung.

Whatever the statesman’s entanglement with Julia, surely a room of relics didn’t factor in.

The next room wasn’t better. These were the statesman’s private quarters, Felix could tell from .

. . well, he could tell. He stood dumbstruck in the statesman’s study, surrounded by mountains of scrolls and papyrus sheets.

Stacks on stacks of paperwork. A half-finished document waited on the desk, inkpot left uncapped to dry.

All that predatory self-control the statesman had shown, but he chose to live in chaotic mess.

Felix closed the door behind him. Unsure what to search for, he riffled through the nearest pile.

A hint, a sign, a word he recognised. Anything.

Loren could’ve translated if he weren’t busy playing politician.

Huffing, Felix slumped at the desk and pushed curls off his forehead.

A room dedicated to random old objects, a guard with a grim message, poppy sap and paperwork.

So much paperwork. How did it all tie together?

A heavy bronze box, more like a coffer, occupied one corner of the desk. When Felix dragged it closer to inspect the lock, something shuffled inside. He tinkered with his hairpin again, and the latch popped.

Inside was more fucking paper.