Page 121 of Vesuvius

‘He doesn’t like to be touched.’ Loren panted.

‘No, I imagine he doesn’t.’ The words were a low hiss, ruthless as snake venom and twice as deadly. ‘For all his razor-sharp posturing, he’s a soft thing when helpless.’

A thumb brushed the crest of Felix’s cheekbone. Nausea curled in Loren’s stomach. He had cupped the ghost’s face like that, only yesterday. ‘I’ll give you one second to release him.’

‘He told me he didn’t believe in magic. Funny, when I can feel the threads in his mind, the way he slips about unseen. Sharp senses. Uncommon luck. Light on his feet, swift as an arrow. And so easy for others to weave those threads anew. It’s how his father made him forget.’ Servius met Loren’s eyes. ‘Forget his pain, at the expense of also forgetting his power. How cruel to deny him the truth.’

Sweat made Loren’s grip on his sword slip. Servius’s words dripped with accusation – as though he somehow knew the ghost had already told Loren all this on the peak of Vesuvius, and Loren had failed to listen. In doing so, he’d denied Felix the truth, too.

‘That’s the give and take of magic. The more you have, the more others want to wield it to their advantage.’ Servius’s stroking thumb stilled. ‘Ah. Here are the memories, muted for so long. Should I release them? See what he does once he remembers who he is?’

Don’t let him, Ghost-Felix begged, deep in Loren’s mind.He will twist what he releases. Only the helmet holds no agenda.

Loren swallowed bile. ‘One.’

He swung. Marred by trembling hands, the blow merely grazed Servius’s shoulder, but he let go with a hiss. Felix’s lashes fluttered as he came back.

‘I see Julia turned you arrogant as she is.’ Servius hauled himself up with a sneer. Blood oozed from his wound. ‘Not a shock, the way you snivelled for her at the games.’

‘What did you do to her?’

Surprise flickered before a smirk twisted Servius’s mouth. ‘We didn’t touch her. She left you as carrion for the vultures.’

That must be a lie. Surely Julia wouldn’t . . . she’d said . . .

Loren slashed again, snarling when Servius dodged neatly, taking another step back.

‘All for nothing. Because with Felix in my power, I won’t need her damned estate to pass legislation. The helmet is but a conduit.He’sthe untapped vessel. Power over the space between life and death, can’t you imagine? He will make the emperor’sghostbeg before we’re through with Rome.’

Life and death and the space in between.Loren stilled. Revelations crashed through his mind of all the clues he’d missed. Felix’s sensitivity to Clovia’s murder. The ghost’s warning that a haze of death hovered over Pompeii, a burden only Felix could shoulder. Felix’s incoherent mumbling about histask.

Mercury had called Felix – his blood – to the city not to destroy it.

To tend to its dead. Take them to their rest.

Loren shivered against a sudden chill. ‘Felix isn’t cruel. He wouldn’t use his power for that.’

Servius barked a laugh. ‘Wouldn’t he? After all he’s endured?’

A flash of copper hair disappearing into swirling silver.

Years of stagnant anger pouring free.

‘You don’t care about him,’ Loren said. ‘You would use him as a weapon.’

‘I’m a person,’ Felix said from behind, wounded voice a quiet punch. When Loren turned, Felix was hunched over the helmet, hugging it tight. He seemed so small in the dark. ‘Not a vessel. Not a weapon.’

Loren’s heart skipped. ‘I didn’t mean—’

‘Put the helmet on,’ said Servius. ‘Prove us wrong. Finish this now.’

For a moment, a shattering, pulsing flash, Loren saw the end.

Not the end of the world, though that was imminent, but the end of Felix.HisFelix, the one Loren had grown to know and treasure and need in only a handful of days. The Felix who listened and laughed, sharp as a blade, and spoke with cutting precision, wounding with words as often as he spun sweet sentences. Who followed Loren up a mountain.

Unravel. Remake.Hollow boy.

But Felix only snarled. ‘Make me.’

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