Page 34 of Vesuvius

‘The Priest still lives.’

‘For now,’ Nonna said darkly. She heaved upright, bones and chair creaking, and brought a covered dish onto the table. ‘Come into the shade, sit.’

Felix caught a slab of flatbread when she tossed it his way. He blinked at her, then at Loren, who grinned.

‘If you hover enough, she feeds you.’

The wrinkles around Nonna’s mouth deepened, and she beckoned Felix with a crooked finger. ‘Let me tell you a thing about Loren. This will help you.’

Felix slid his stool as close as he could with a table in the way.

‘He is a sweet boy. A good boy. But he hasn’t a seed’s worth of sense. He is like a sparrow. Flits around, head empty, pecking for scraps.’ She waved her hand, a loose-wristed gesture, as if warding off pests. Still, she threw flatbread to Loren. ‘We must eat good bread while we can, and I fear that time runs short.’

Loren’s face twisted in the middle of his bite, like the bread turned to ash in his mouth.

Felix’s own hunger vanished. He knew that look – Loren’s superstitious, doom-foretelling look, same as he’d met the helmet with, same as he wore before he hit Felix with the bowl. The look that left Felix questioning what Loren knew but wouldn’t say.

‘Don’t—’ Felix started.

‘You heard about the helmet,’ Loren said in a rush, leaning forward. ‘You think it means something.’

Nonna scoffed. She worked a lump of dough with deft hands, kneading it into a round. ‘You do not live as long as me without learning to recognise a divine sign. What have I said for years now? Only a matter of time, but Livia says no, no, surely nothing. Foolish woman.’

Loren flicked a glance at Felix. ‘Do you, ah, that is – who do you think might have taken it? And how? Clearly, the gods didn’t want it touched.’

‘My grandfather’s grandfather saw it given to the city, brought to us from bloodshed in Corinth and left to be ogled at here. By Rome. Conquerors stealingfromthe conquered to gifttothe conquered.’ Shespat over her shoulder. ‘If Mercury did not want it moved, it would not have been moved.’

Mercury. The name flitted through the void of Felix’s memory again. Teasing. Mocking. Like peering through the shutters of his own life, unable to open the window, while others faced no barrier. He bit his tongue against the frustration.

Loren’s mouth pinched. ‘Mercury is a trickster. Stirring trouble for trouble’s sake?’

‘Your mistake is rationalising the actions of gods with what you as a human would do. They are not like us, and Mercury is different from even his brothers. Remember, he alone can traverse between the living and dead.’

‘That’s right.’ His frown deepened. ‘He’s a psychopomp. He escorts souls to the underworld to face judgement. Do you worry that power could be accessed through the helmet?’

‘I am less afraid of the helmet than I am of the pawn able to take it. Whether the thief knows it or not, he has more in common with the dead than the living. Two boundaries that should not be blurred.’ With a knife, Nonna split an X into her dough. ‘What is a house dog if not a wolf stripped of its wild? Dream-walker. Plane-crosser. Power waiting to be used.’

Enough.

Her accusations coated Felix’s skin with a sticky veneer. He was none of those things. He was nobody. He was a child of the streets. He had no power, tamed or otherwise, and he wouldn’t allow himself to be used by a god he couldn’t afford to believe in.

Enough.

Destiny was a crock, but when Nonna rose to transfer the dough to the oven and Loren fumbled the tray in the process, Felix took the ensuing scolding as his own divine sign and made a break for it. Stepping off the high pavement, he slipped into the traffic of a city waking from its afternoonnap.

Business as usual. Stalls reopened, goods spread on tables. Carts trundled past, pulled by cranky mules. Felix scurried between crowds, ducked under a litter carried by some rich bastard’s servants, pushed through the linked arms of friends. His pulse crested with the same thrill stealing the helmet earned him.

Nonna could keep her superstition about gods and pawns. Felix paved his own path.

He emerged across the street, victory thrumming. Once he’d reclaimed the helmet, he’d be golden. He only needed—

‘Felix, stop!’

His mistake was turning to look.

A flustered Loren, halfway across a set of crossing stones, swayed on his feet.

And collapsed.

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