Page 42 of Vesuvius

A necklace here, a handful of glass beads there – no one noticed, and why should they? Why notice some dirty street kid brushing past, new clothes or not? He was forgotten the moment he strayed out of reach.

Whatever others thought they saw in Felix – that he was built of bad intentions, that he had stolen the helmet at Mercury’s bidding, that bad fortune chased him – wasn’t true, and this proved it. Felix was nobody. He passed through unseen, a spectator. A spectre.

All of it, the running, the pickpocketing, the eyes skipping over him, should have made him feel like himself again. But Felix couldn’t melt into it. None of it helped. A whole pocketful of new treasures couldn’t dull the echo in his brain. Careless flirting made his skin shrink. His shoulders crept higher, agitation cresting. He wanted . . . he wanted . . .

He wanted to know why Loren looked at him with recognition when other gazes skated past.

Which was exactly why Felix needed to get out of Pompeii before it stole the last of him for good. Loren had dared to tread too close, plucked at too many of the fraying threads of Felix’s memory. If Felix pursued the questions lurking in his mind – that Loren knew something about him that Felix didn’t know of himself – Loren might unpick a seam that couldn’t be mended.

But admitting that would break his most important rule, and Loren wasn’t worth the price of belief.

Hemp burned mellow and earthy from nearby sconces, but Felix’s head only ached. Snatching a raisin roll, he slipped down a quiet alley,shaking off the press of the crowd. Phantom hands seemed to crawl over his skin, fingers he couldn’t bat away.

Blank grey eyes met his when he passed by a door. Felix stilled. A god’s carved stone face stared from the keystone of an arch, framed by a winged helm and a staff wound with twin snakes. Nonna’s words came back –If Mercury did not want it moved, it would not have been moved. Superstitious nonsense. He made to move on.

Deep in the recesses of Felix’s mind, a faded memory tugged of too-tight sandals and pockets of coins and bitter, sticky wine. Of that same cold, impassive stare, watching and doing nothing.

Taking a step back, Felix wrenched free from the past, even as wordless chattering picked up, restless voices belonging to no one. The sound was maddening. Relentless. Desperate.

‘This is your fault,’ he found himself saying, though he couldn’t put a finger on what compelled the accusation now. Mercury meant nothing to him.Nothing. ‘Everything is.’

The murmuring stopped, and the memory flitted away.

Felix cursed, to no one in particular. To Mercury, maybe, if he thought for a moment the gods ever listened. Temple-goers could keep their superstition. His devotion belonged to luck, and he created his own.

He’d barely stepped onto an adjacent street when the little girl from Livia’s shop barrelled into him, slamming him against brick.

‘Jupiter, slow down,’ Felix said, rubbing his reeling skull. ‘Late for curfew?’

Aurelia glared, eyes puffy and face shiny with snot and tears. ‘Why weren’t you with him? Where have you been?’

‘Minding my business. Give it a try sometime.’

Snatching his hand, Aurelia tugged. ‘They took Loren away. Hurry, we have to find him.’

Felix dug his heels into cobblestone. ‘If Loren got himself into some shit, he can work hisown way out.’

‘I thought you were his friend. He said you were his friend.’

Friend. Even the word set Felix on edge. ‘His mistake.’

Aurelia stomped her foot like the child she was.

‘Listen,’ Felix said, ‘and let this be a lesson to you both. Don’t pick fights you don’t intend to finish. Or learn to run fast. Either way, his problems aren’t mine.’

He turned to leave, but Aurelia drew in a deep, rattling breath and rasped, ‘Dream-walker. Plane-crosser.’

Felix froze. Only hours earlier, Nonna had used those same words to describe the helmet thief – a conversation Aurelia, unless she was even sneakier than Felix, hadn’t been privy to. But Aurelia looked beyond herself. A glazed look washed over her, slackening and shifting her features until she seemed both younger and more ancient than she was.

‘Where did you hear that?’ Felix demanded. Aurelia wobbled, but he caught her shoulders, trying to catch her unfocused gaze.

‘Escort of the living,’ she said, lips pale, ‘and the dead.’

She was a thousand miles away, the same way Loren’s eyes drifted when he had his episodes. For a moment, Felix worried her limbs would collapse, leave her jerking on the ground in a fit, like he once witnessed a woman do in Rome. Felix was a child at the time, and his father was quick to rush him from the scene, whispering that she must have seen more than she should. That part never made sense to Felix. How could simply seeing something fracture a mind? Years later, he realised his father meant a different type ofseeing.

The kind Felix never allowed himself to think possible.

‘His hand,’ Aurelia whispered. ‘Take his hand. Pull him back.’

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