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Chapter II

LOREN

L oren’s life was easier before he started dreaming of the copper-haired ghost.

Months of jolting from sleep in a cold sweat, the ghost’s name lingering on the tip of his tongue, out of reach, and now he was here to haunt Loren in person.

Except ghosts surely didn’t crumple after being struck with an altar bowl.

This was a boy, flesh and blood, and Loren had killed him. Just like that.

By pure luck, Loren reacted in time to catch him before he hit the floor. They sank to the ground together, the boy’s curls splayed over his lap.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Loren said. ‘So, so sorry.’

He didn’t stir.

In all fairness, the subject of Loren’s worst nightmares showing up blood-splattered and wild-eyed at his job was more than a little unsettling.

Especially after the night he’d had, tossing and turning and shouting awake, then the quake .

. . But dear Isis, he hadn’t meant to commit murder.

Fear and guilt swirled in his stomach. Clumsy fingers searched for a pulse, but his hands shook so badly he doubted he’d found the right point .

Raised voices and pounding feet at the temple’s entrance knocked Loren from his reverie.

‘This is sacred ground,’ barked Camilia, another temple attendant. ‘Sheathe your sword.’

She tried to block a man in leather armour from charging into the courtyard.

Loren had to give her credit. Short but fierce, Camilia threw orders like a legionnaire captain, all while dressed in a sleeping tunic, cropped hair tangled as a bird’s nest. Privately, Loren marvelled at the speed with which she’d got here following the quake.

Camilia lived across town, but nothing, not even distance, could stand between her and the temple during a crisis.

‘You harbour a criminal,’ the guard said. ‘By order of my master—’

‘I don’t care if your master is Emperor Titus himself. You will not come in here. We have no criminals.’

Camilia didn’t know, Loren realised. She hadn’t seen him yet. Hooking his arms around the body, Loren attempted to edge them both behind the altar. The boy’s head lolled sickeningly. Camilia’s back faced them, but the guard spotted the movement. He gestured with his gladius.

‘Explain that.’

Camilia turned.

Sometimes Loren wished his mystical gift was less prophetic in nature and more like the thought-sharing sort he read about in stories.

At least that would be useful, something he could control.

Particularly in times like these, when Camilia glared him down, eyes unreadable.

Loren had found himself the recipient of this look far too often lately.

I’ll tell you everything. Every detail. Loren thought it as hard as he could at her. Just get rid of him.

Camilia’s jaw clenched.

‘Goddess Isis is a friend to the downtrodden,’ she said at last. ‘We provide sanctuary to all. ’

The guard sneered. ‘The thief didn’t come here for sanctuary.’

‘Thief or not, you can’t touch him under our protection. Surely your master is familiar with Roman law?’

Loren’s heart raced. Camilia’s boldness toed a line. Temple grounds or not, women didn’t have the option of being bold when it came to dealings with sword-wielding men.

The guard’s eyes slid past Loren and lingered on the collapsed body. After an excruciating pause, he sheathed his sword.

‘I will report what transpired here.’ He nodded, reeking of condescension, before striding from the temple.

Camilia stayed stiff until the door stopped swinging, then exhaled. ‘That should keep him from our door for now.’

‘For now,’ Loren echoed dully.

She hurried to Loren’s side, brushing the boy’s curls back for a better look at his blood-drained face. He couldn’t be much older than Loren’s age, sixteen. ‘Gods, Loren, what did you do to him? Is he alive?’

‘It was an accident .’ Loren yanked off his smothering veil. ‘Well, I hit him, but only because he frightened me.’

‘He attacked you?’

Loren laughed, a choked little noise. There was another point in his defence: anyone who witnessed the brutality he endured nightly would have reacted the same, bowl and all. But Camilia didn’t believe his dreams. She had already made that clear.

She checked the boy’s pulse. ‘Still beating. Good. I don’t know what we’d do if we had to hide a body.’

Too late, Loren caught her teasing tone. But the joke didn’t hit. He was too overwhelmed by the confirmation that he hadn’t, in fact, killed someone. He scrapped his defence tally – no murder, no murder trial.

Together they lugged the thief, as the guard called him, into the private quarters. No sooner had they settled him on a chaise than he stirred, lashes fluttering and lips parting. Camilia frowned. From her tunic pocket, she withdrew a vial. Uncorking it, she dripped liquid into his open mouth.

‘Diluted poppy sap,’ she explained. ‘Should keep him quiet for a few hours until we work out what to do with him.’

‘You carry that in your nightclothes?’

‘Helps me sleep. Must be careful, though. It’s potent.’ She tucked the vial away. ‘He’s handsome, isn’t he? Look at that clever jaw.’

Despite their circumstances, Loren’s cheeks burned, and he pretended for the world that the thief had no jaw at all, let alone a clever one. Gods . ‘I thought you weren’t attracted to boys. Men.’

‘I still have eyes.’ She left Loren kneeling by the couch to fix a toppled stool. ‘How did the building fare?’

Loren blinked. The thief’s arrival had caught him so off guard he’d nearly forgotten the quake. ‘No major damage, I think, but I didn’t inspect. Castor and Pollux bolted. I don’t know when we’ll see them again.’

He tore his eyes from the rise and fall of the boy’s chest and scooted back. Distance eased his rattled nerves. Pulling his hair over his shoulder, he picked apart his sleep-mussed braid and started to redo it. It wasn’t until he reached the end that he realised his hands were still trembling.

‘Loren?’

He jumped when Camilia touched his shoulder. Craning his neck, he offered a half smile.

She met it with a frown. ‘Are you all right?’

‘The quake put me on edge.’

‘You were here early.’

‘Thought I’d start the chores.’

‘Well-timed that you were here, with the quake.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘Well-timed that the altar flame had already been put out. That the bowl wasn’t on the altar at all. ’

So she had noticed. Loren gnawed his lip.

‘Tell me you weren’t trying to scry again,’ Camilia snapped. ‘Tell me you aren’t possibly that—’

Loren didn’t have the patience to rehash this same argument after a night of no sleep.

He knew it wasn’t his place to scry. He knew he upset the divine order of Olympus by being a ‘non-ordained oracle with a penchant for meddling’, or however Camilia phrased it.

The last thing he needed was to be reminded of his own delusion. Again.

‘We should return to the courtyard,’ Loren said tersely. ‘If the quake woke you, it’s only a matter of time before the Priest arrives.’

Camilia levelled him with one final glare before sweeping from the room.

The thief shifted, but lost in the deep pool of poppy sap, he didn’t stir other than a brief furrow of his brow, as if he too saw unpleasantries in his sleep. Loren could’ve laughed if the situation at all warranted it. Instead, he felt ill.

If the thief woke, would he reach for a knife? Would he become the lifeless, cruel ghost Loren was all too intimate with? Burn the city, the way he did in Loren’s dreams? Which of his friends would the thief cut down?

How long until the thief collapsed Pompeii’s sky, with all of them trapped beneath?

Loren came to Pompeii with hopes of using his gift to help. To prove his value beyond his family name. But his visions only showed hurt, with no way he could fathom to stop it.

‘Why you?’ Loren whispered, ragged. ‘Why now?’

No answer. There never was.

Loren lingered by the thief’s side a moment more, staring at anything but him, wondering if there was a way he could turn back time. Wondering if it would make a difference .

By the time Loren quelled his shaking fingers by rebraiding his hair thrice, sunrise was upon them, and the others trudged in.

They were an odd assortment, this cult of Isis.

For one, they had the Priest, a man older than stone, who spent most of his days inhaling fumes wafting off the altar.

Then there were the twins, Sera and Shani, two middle-aged women who never seemed to enjoy being around each other, or anyone else for that matter. Camilia, of course, and Loren.

And Celsi, the previous errand boy, but they didn’t mention him anymore.

Sera’s voice hit Loren’s ears first, louder and more sinister than her sister’s. He cringed as he edged back into the courtyard.

‘ . . . another quake,’ she was saying. ‘Three in as many months. If I didn’t know better, I would think the gods were angry.’

‘You do think the gods are angry,’ Shani replied mildly. ‘You said so just last night.’

The sisters supported a hobbled figure, the Priest, still half asleep. As Sera and Shani bickered, Loren crept to join Camilia. In his absence, she had tamed her hair, pulled on attendant robes and returned the bowl-turned-weapon to the altar. Now she coaxed a small fire to burn higher.

‘Have you thought what we should tell them?’ he whispered.

‘Is that my problem?’ Camilia placed a bundle of incense in the crackling flames. Blue smoke curled into the early sky.

The Priest finally roused, and he pointed to Loren. ‘You, child,’ he said, and Loren felt the warm glow of acknowledgment for a heartbeat before the old man continued, ‘fetch a stool.’

Loren held back a sigh. Errand boy. Retrieving the spindly stool, he placed it beside the altar, and Shani helped the Priest settle onto it. He inhaled the burning herbs, eyes glazing over .

‘Mm, that is nice. Camilia, dear, what are these fumes?’

Camilia frowned. ‘Purchased from the hemp shop.’

The Priest smacked his lips. ‘Divine. Now, where were we?’

‘Earthquakes,’ said Shani.

‘The gods’ wrath,’ offered Sera.