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‘Camilia,’ Loren countered. ‘Shall I fetch the Priest?’

Camilia eyed him a beat too long. ‘Go on. Let’s get this over with. ’

If one word could send Felix over the edge, it was priest .

In the taverns and gambling dens Felix frequented, drunk men often played the game of association.

You’d throw out a word, then the table spat out whatever term first came to mind.

So even something innocent, like bed , turned out an answer like tits .

Usually crass. Rarely clever, but the men roared with laughter regardless.

Felix wasn’t laughing now.

His deepest instincts associated priest with pain , two things he tried his best to avoid. Two things he’d found in abundance in Pompeii.

The Priest of Isis, waiting on a stool by the altar, didn’t seem thrilled to meet Felix either. Almost as if even he knew this ritual, whatever it served, wouldn’t make an inch of difference to the gods. Camilia led Felix over, still bound. Curling, sweet smoke soothed his headache.

‘What’s your name?’ asked the Priest. Felix wondered if he cared about the answer or if this was his way of being polite. Felix didn’t do polite.

‘Fuck,’ he said.

The Priest frowned. ‘That is not a proper name, son.’

‘I’m not a proper person.’

Someone stifled a nervous laugh. Loren, maybe.

The Priest scratched his chin before grumbling under his breath. A grouchy woman passed him a bone-handled knife. The bindings around Felix’s wrists slid free, but Camilia gripped his shoulders. No chance of fleeing. She wrestled his arm onto the altar, tender palm exposed.

‘Not the hand,’ Felix snapped, curling his fist. His hands were his source of income. Scarred tissue was less dexterous. Deadly for a thief.

Camilia glared, but she repositioned his forearm to the centre of the altar. Then she produced a clay cup of floral wine – Eumachius, not Lassius, so at least someone here had decent taste – and poured it over Felix’s skin, staining it red.

‘Goddess Isis,’ the Priest intoned. ‘We call upon you to grant us clemency. Accept this offering.’

The grouchy twins knelt, hands to the sky. A moment later, Loren followed. Felix’s attention snagged on the turn of his thin wrists, his fine-boned fingers. Silly, inconsequential details to notice. Distractions.

The Priest plunged the knife in a silver flash.

The blade pierced Felix’s vein, inky blood pooling, and he stifled a cry. It stung worse than the cuts on his calves, somehow. Maybe because Felix had anticipated it.

Or maybe because it put him at the mercy of another priest.

‘Guide us through death . . .’

Felix hissed as the knife slid deeper, then crossed an X in the bend of his arm.

‘. . . and the afterlife . . .’

Legs buckling, Felix collapsed against the altar. Blood chased wine, running in rivulets down white marble to pool on uneven tile.

‘. . . back to the world of the living,’ the Priest continued, gaze cast up. ‘Protect our city from the earth’s turmoil. See our sacrifice, and know it is in your honour.’

The blood made Felix’s head spin. He stared, dumbstruck, as smoke from the altar bowl took shape, took flight, the splay of wings. Up, up.

Nothing.

And then – everything.

Orange streaked across the courtyard, a cat bolting for cover, and the ground beneath Felix’s feet shuddered. Panic gripped him, that same water-sick instability he’d felt in the statesman’s house.

The rattling intensified, stone chattering. Camilia released Felix, lunging to steady the Priest before the old man’s knees gave out. Felix slid to the ground, back against the altar, cradling his wrist, pulsing hot and sticky. From this angle, he couldn’t see where Loren stumbled off to.

This was Felix’s chance. The animal part of his brain took over, and he scrambled on slick hands and bruised knees towards the door.

‘No!’

A weight barrelled into Felix – Loren tackling him off course.

They rolled in a swirl of temple robes, grappling while the world continued to shake.

Loren moved with the same decisiveness Felix had noted the instant before the bowl crashed down, eyes flashing with inexplicable, horrified recognition.

As if to say – I know you.

It ended, as all things had that day, with Felix dizzy and disoriented and smeared in his own blood. Loren took advantage of Felix’s weakness and pinned him flat, didn’t relent even as the rumbling quieted. Loren’s chest heaved, and Felix’s skin crawled. He was too close. Too close.

‘Stop,’ Felix begged, desperation trembling like he’d swallowed the quake. ‘Let me go .’

At first, Loren merely blinked, and Felix’s frustration heightened, not knowing how to convey that he wasn’t trying to run, not this time.

All thoughts of escape had fled. What he needed was space, any amount of it, before he vomited bile over them both, but he had no hope Loren would grant him that.

That he’d understand, without words, what Felix asked.

But after a long, sticky pause, Loren surprised him. He pulled back, grip loosening. With a final twist, Felix broke the hold and scooted away. He’d offer his other arm to be sliced if it meant strange hands would stop touching him.

A moment of suffocating silence passed before Felix realised all eyes were on him. Because his blood cooled on the altar. Because it was so easy for others to draw conclusions about him when they didn’t even know his name .

‘An aftershock,’ Camilia suggested, though she didn’t sound convinced. ‘From the quake earlier.’

The Priest hummed, rubbing his chin. The stare he directed at Felix cut him to the bone. He might as well have been on display at a school of medicine. Not a person, but an oddity. Something to ogle. ‘Curious.’

‘I propose,’ said one twin, ‘we read his entrails for a sign.’

‘Sera,’ scolded the other. ‘We would need to pay an augur for that. It’s not in the budget. Though, given the circumstances, Umbrius might make an exception.’

‘With Umbrius in charge, the council ignores anything remotely resembling bad news,’ said Camilia. ‘Anything that threatens peace. Or the economy, rather. Why stir panic when he can pretend trouble doesn’t exist?’

Sera muttered something about where this Umbrius character ought to stick the economy.

The Priest hefted onto the stool with a world-weary sigh. ‘We have not had funds for augury since I was a boy, and Umbrius shows little interest in omens besides. Though if we don’t kill the boy, it begs the question of what, exactly, we do now.’

‘Let him go,’ Camilia said. ‘If we have no further use for him.’

Sera cackled. ‘For free? You said that soldier wanted him. Demand a fee in exchange, and we can all eat well tonight.’

‘If I may . . .’ Loren said, still crouched an arm’s length from Felix.

Felix couldn’t help but focus on him. Loren thumbed a frayed cord around his neck, back and forth, an unsure gesture. The frantic drive he’d shown tackling Felix had fizzled away.

‘You think he’d pay? More likely his master would cut off our heads before handing over the reward,’ Camilia said. ‘Clearly the thief is poor luck. Pompeii has enough of that already.’

‘If I may . . .’ Loren tried again .

‘He seems sweet,’ Shani said. ‘We could keep him around. A pet.’

Sera scoffed. ‘We have Castor and Pollux. How many more mouths must we feed?’

‘I’ll take responsibility,’ Loren blurted.

The room’s attention fell on him.

‘You?’ said Sera.

‘You,’ said the Priest, ‘with what authority?’

Loren’s hands twisted in his lap. ‘I don’t have much power in the city.

But as a free citizen and temple attendant, I can offer him some protection from the council and guards, at least until we know if he’s tied to the quakes.

And what Camilia said, about bad luck – I fear setting him loose, without knowing what he’s capable of, would do more harm than good. ’

Irony simmered low in Felix’s gut, and it felt a lot like vomit.

Loren bemoaned his lack of power in the city, yet in the same breath staked claim on another’s freedom.

Last night, Felix had been on top of the world, flying through empty streets, nothing on his mind but treasure and the next town.

Now to sit there, helpless and bloody, while strangers blamed him for wreckage and debated his fate?

This was lower than low. Felix was a thief. What capabilities did Loren think he had?

The Priest returned to rubbing his chin.

‘An interesting proposition. If the gods are upset, and this boy is connected, perhaps it would be wise to keep watch on him. At least until I receive a clearer sign about his fate. But understand, if you vouch for his honour now, any further trouble he causes will land on your shoulders.’

Loren hesitated. Slowly, he nodded.

All the while, he never spared a glance for Felix. That rankled him the most.

Another hum from the Priest. ‘Do something about that arm, won’t you? Before he bleeds to death in my courtyard.’

Felix caught Camilia and Loren exchanging a look.

Reading people had never come easy to him, but he got the sense she was asking if Loren knew what he was getting himself into.

And Felix wanted to respond for him: no.

Here was a boy willing to bash a stranger’s skull on first sight, then hope he survived long enough to question later.

Who, when doing the questioning, sneaked around behind his fellow temple attendants, like he alone needed the information.

Who clearly didn’t trust Felix, not one bit, yet wanted him on a tight leash.

I know you.

Loren was unpredictable. Impulsive, not instinctive. And he seemed to know something Felix didn’t.

That made him the most dangerous person in the room.

So, no. Loren had no idea the trouble he was in now that he and Felix were tied together.