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The phantom sensation of a hand curled around Felix’s own wrist. He blinked.

Blinked again. His lungs tightened. The sway of bodies, the echoing pulse of a drum – his own father dragging him down temple stairs, feet tacky with blood on white marble, a cooling body robed in sacred purple splayed behind . . .

The memory thread snapped, and with the next drumbeat, disintegrated.

Felix yanked himself present, shivering with anger at his mind for pulling him through time like that.

He rubbed his wrist, the ghost of long-faded bruises.

His father hadn’t meant to hurt him. He’d pulled Felix away from the hurt, he was sure of it.

Not what Celsi’s father had done. Dragged him – Felix’s stomach soured – towards worse.

Camilia rubbed her eyes. A second later, she fled in the opposite direction, walking faster than Felix could hope to catch up to.

He couldn’t shake the feeling he’d intruded on a scene he shouldn’t have witnessed.

If he were braver – if he were Loren – he might have intervened, if only to wrench that man’s hand off Celsi’s little wrist.

The ebb and flow of the crowd dragged him back in, though he felt more on the outside than ever.

He couldn’t relate to these strangers. He wasn’t like them.

A mystery cup of liquid appeared in his hand from an equally mysterious source.

Alcohol would only dampen the senses Felix needed sharp, but between the press of the crowd and the lingering pinch in his chest, a sip couldn’t hurt.

He brought the cup to his nose. Nothing unusual. Good.

He threw it back. All of it.

Bitter hops burst across Felix’s tongue, searing his throat. Within seconds, a fresh cup was exchanged for the old. This was a mistake. He swallowed another mouthful and turned. And promptly spit it back out.

He had found Loren.

Beer dribbled down Felix’s chin. With a grimace, he scrubbed his sleeve across his mouth.

In the quarter hour after storming off, Loren had melted into a group of townspeople letting loose, spinning and laughing and clapping in rhythm.

Some type of folk dance, the type everyone was somehow born knowing.

Everyone except Felix, anyway. Because while other children got to practise dancing, he was cutting his teeth as a prodigy pickpocket.

The leather band holding Loren’s braid had fallen out, long hair tumbling down his back and catching the light when he spun. A stranger’s arm linked through his and danced him away.

Dumbstruck, Felix passed his cup elsewhere.

All his life, Felix had kept a tight grip on his feelings, determined to keep them in line.

If he was angry, he stayed angry until he ran or drank it from his system.

But Loren wasn’t like that. Felix pictured it with perfect clarity: Loren, angry and shiny-eyed and bursting with self-righteousness, storming through the Forum, not realising he’d cut through the middle of a dance until he was pulled in.

Getting swept away. Switching his feelings on impulse.

Determined to get the most out of every beat of his heart, even when it didn’t make sense.

Gods, Felix yearned to live that way, where he could put his heart’s desires over the demands of his head. Where he ran into the moment, instead of from it.

Across the space, their eyes met. Loren’s face lit up, their earlier spat forgotten, and he skipped close to extend a hand.

As if to pull Felix in. To dance with him.

Felix only managed a blank stare. Another stranger, a boy with pretty eyelashes, materialised from nowhere to whisk Loren off.

Sharp heat curled in Felix’s rib cage. A moment passed before he placed the feeling.

Jealousy.

‘Gods,’ Felix said, teeth gritted.

When an opening appeared, a girl’s timid smile, Felix let himself be tugged in. She mumbled her name, and he tried to remember, but the buzz of alcohol hit his system at last, a soft filter between him and the crowd and her hand on his.

Her hair was all wrong. All pinned and complicated. Not free to cast his fingers through. Still, she showed him how to move his feet, and she didn’t mock him when he stepped on her toes. They whirled to the drum. If he were anyone else, he might’ve held on to her .

Partners switched. Felix reached, but the boy Loren danced with swept in, twining their fingers and grinning against his neck.

Partners switched. Now Felix swung an old woman, near Nonna’s age, and she laughed a creaky thing when he dipped her low.

Somewhere in the mix, Felix’s palla pulled free, scarf unwinding, exposure coming as a luscious, nervous thrill.

Partners switched. And switched. The music picked up tempo, spiralling and lilting and clapping to –

At last, Loren’s hand landed in his, and Felix reeled him close, gripping him tight at the waist. The touch burned him to cinders. Cinnamon eyes. A dusting of freckles. Sunshine.

– the end.

‘Felix,’ Loren said, and he didn’t move away.

‘Do you want,’ Felix started. Stopped. His mouth went bone dry. ‘I mean. Can I.’

A sudden, breath-stealing urge to linger in the moment for the rest of his life, frozen in this spot as a pair of statues, cascaded through his system. Loren’s lips formed the most perfect bow, parted in confusion or surprise.

Felix found himself tilting forward.

A shriek split the din. Chatter died. Felix jolted back as a streak of long curly hair burst from the crowd, barrelling toward them. He missed the heat of Loren’s palm the second it slipped from his grasp.

‘Aurelia?’ Loren said, frazzled, his eyes unfocused.

She said nothing as she collided into him at full force. Loren tipped back and, on instinct, Felix moved to catch his arm. Too late.

Aurelia pulled Loren’s hand to meet her cheek.

His legs gave out. He folded. His eyes rolled back in his head, and Loren was gone.