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‘I’m listening,’ Loren repeated, because it was all he could say.

‘The block isn’t gone now, but whatever Servius did to my mind – I could feel him prodding around. Trying to show me . . .’ Felix took a shaky breath, fists curled against his thighs. ‘Some scenes slipped through, and I don’t know how to hold them. The rest stay gone. ’

Crickets chirped. Loren ached to reach out. Instead, he kept his distance and watched. Eventually, Felix returned to his task, clawing the earth. Tarnished silver glinted dully, half concealed in the shadow of a nearby garden statue.

On a hunch, Loren lifted Mercury’s helmet, now halved, cracked down the bridge of the nose.

When the lightning struck, it struck home.

The metal was cold and empty. Whatever power it once held had dissipated, burned in Felix’s last stand against Vesuvius.

He traced the edge of a wing, remembering how the ghost begged him not to let Servius be the one to release the memories.

That Servius had an agenda. That only the helmet could be neutral.

‘You’re burying it,’ Loren said quietly. ‘Oh, Felix. You shouldn’t.’

‘You think I want this connection to Mercury? That he, what, led me to the helmet somehow, dangled a chance at remembering, because he felt sorry for what his priest did to me? It’s shitty. This’ – Felix bared his teeth and nodded to the split helmet – ‘is shit.’

‘That isn’t why you were called to Pompeii, and you know it. You said it yourself. You were drawn there for a task. Mercury wanted—’

‘I don’t care,’ Felix spat. ‘If Mercury wanted me to believe in him, he wouldn’t have let his priest hurt me in his own temple. I don’t give a damn if the gods are real, or if I’m Mercury’s descendant. If the point of my life is to do his bidding, I don’t want it.’

‘It wasn’t by his bidding that you saved me. You channelled your own divinity. You made that choice. Not Mercury.’

The scorched imprint of where two hands had held the helmet down framed the eyes. Loren would recognise their shape and size anywhere, in life or death, light or dark. Those hands had pulled him back to the living when he should have been made ash.

Setting aside the fractured metal, Loren reached into the ground and grasped Felix’s wrists. Felix attempted to pull free, but Loren held tight, coaxing Felix’s fingers to unfurl, revealing his palms. Blazed white. Blistered skin. A fresh throb beat through Loren’s dead heart.

‘You’re hurting yourself doing this.’

‘Funny,’ Felix said flatly. ‘I can’t feel a thing.’

Fistful by fistful, he cleared out the grave, and he didn’t speak again.

Loren sat apart, worse than useless, as a chill crept over the night.

He was no medical expert, but his little training confirmed what neither he nor Felix needed to say out loud: Felix’s clever hands were wasted.

If he were lucky, he might regain sensitivity in his fingers.

Might. But they would forever be clumsy.

For a thief, a fumble was a death sentence.

At last, Felix lowered the helmet into the hole. So much for Rome’s great gift to Pompeii. Once the earth swallowed the helmet, he hauled a boulder over it to prevent anyone from digging it up again. Then he scrubbed his poor hands in the trough, and that was that.

What a pair they made. Loren with his messed-up leg, and Felix with his messed-up hands. Felix the psychopomp, Loren the boy who should have been left dead.

‘You should go inside,’ Felix said when it was done, not looking over. ‘You need to rest.’

‘Will you come with me?’ Loren hardly dared ask it.

Jaw tight, Felix shook his head. ‘Go inside.’

‘Felix—’

‘ Please . What Servius said, what my father did, what you knew but didn’t tell me . . .’ His voice cracked. He wrapped his arms around his midsection, keeping himself together by force. ‘We can speak once you’ve healed, I promise that. If you care for me at all, you’ll let me have this space.’

Loren couldn’t deny him that. The best he could ever offer anyone was his absence.

He had never bettered a situation by making himself more present.

He collected the sword and hobbled halfway back to the estate.

A lantern had flicked on in the servants’ quarters.

His escape would be noticed soon, and if he didn’t return, Loren would be forced to find out if he was worth his parents getting out of bed for.

Still, he lingered just beyond the orchard, waiting for what would never come.

His thigh burned. His ankle throbbed. His chest was carved empty.

He stared at the sky, cluttered with real stars.

Precise stars. A waxing moon teased the night but, for once, her return brought no comfort.

Whatever rebirth meant to Isis, Loren didn’t want it.

Not now that he knew how it felt.

A measure away but still so achingly close, Loren caught the soft sound of Felix’s ragged breathing and knew he, too, watched the sky through the canopy of evenly spaced trees. But he said nothing. No approach came. Part of Loren was glad for it.

Two boys, each alone in the desperate dark.

A chasm of uncrossable distance.