Page 129 of Vesuvius

Loren shut his eyes tight against his reflection. Acid rose in his throat. Damned if he didn’t know that. Damned that he’d been so foolish, had, in one stylus stroke, lived up to every accusation of ignorance and impulsiveness his father had ever levelled at him. Julia gave Loren hope of change, then snatched it away, and he was too empty to care.

‘There at the end, she became desperate. Servius was closing in. After Umbrius . . .’ Felix ran his fingers through tangled curls. ‘What did she say to win you back over? And leaving the contract where she knew he would look the instant she fled town – all of it was a setup. What she didn’t predict is that you would leave, too.’

‘That you sent me away.’

Felix swallowed. ‘To save your life.’

Dragging his gaze up, Loren stared at Felix in the dark. He looked ragged, paper-thin and an instant from collapse. Yet, somehow, still unfairly golden.

Loren wanted to sob because he knew,he knewFelix was holding himself together at his own expense. Felix had fought to keep control for hours – days – so he could play his part perfectly, get Loren to safety. He’d wrestled back his own grief to give Loren space for his.

All Loren felt was a sharp hook of anger. Not at Felix. At his own ugly, rotting heart.

‘You brought me here,’ Loren croaked. He stuck the dagger point-down in the dirt. ‘You brought me here, you saved me, and I want to hate you for it.’

‘You can. I would understand. I couldn’t think where else to go.’

‘Stop it. Stop being so damned good. I can’t stand to hear it.’

‘I know it hurts.’

‘How? How would you know anything about what I feel right now? Pompeii was my home. You’ve never had . . .’ Loren broke off, but the damage was done. Felix’s face hardened.

‘A home? No. But you still have this one, and that’s more than me.’ He tore from Loren’s side. Footsteps crunched away, then came the sound of metal clanking as he resumed whatever task Loren had interrupted.

Ankle screaming, Loren followed the noise deeper into the orchard. Felix knelt at the base of a pomegranate shrub, back to Loren, hands sunk in the earth. Digging for something, but Loren couldn’t fathom what.

‘Felix, I didn’t mean that.’

For a long while, Felix was quiet. When he spoke, his words were tight and angry and carefully controlled. ‘The closest I had was Mercury’s temple in Rome, where my father left me for long weeks while running errands for Servius. Until he learned what the priest was doing to me. How the priest dosed me with wine and poppy sap and . . . sorry, should I spare you the details?’ Felix bit when Loren made a pained noise. ‘He assaulted me, Loren. Let me say it. No one else ever has.’

Sickness hit Loren in such a sudden wave that he flinched. ‘I’m . . . listening.’

‘My father thought I couldn’t handle my own shit past. He fucking’ – Felix wrenched a rock from the ground, hurled it over his shoulder, where it hit the trough with a hollow clang – ‘locked it away. But I never forgot the effects, reactions I couldn’t explain, hurts I couldn’t name. My father just stole my words to understand them.’

‘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, revealinghis palms. Blazed white. Blistered skin. A fresh throb beat through Loren’s dead heart.

‘You’re hurting yourself doing this.’

---