Page 51 of Vesuvius

‘So you can keep an eye on me. So you can ask questions when I’ve told you to stop.’ Felix’s fists curled. ‘Because you don’t trust me.’

You haven’t given me a reason to, Loren nearly said.

Except that wasn’t true. He flashed back to last night: Felix breaking into the estate, if only to ensure Loren’s safety. Felix listening to him ramble in the dark. How, despite the many holes Loren left for him to slip through and end their agreement, Felix kept coming back.

His bed was empty that morning. But he was here now.

‘Trust my experience if you trust nothing else from me. It’s never a good sign when a rich person takes an interest in you,’ Felix said. ‘I know what it’s like to be used.’

He stormed from the atrium before Loren could work past the conflict in his chest.

Chapter XIII

FELIX

Ditching sandals to silence an approach only worked if the target wasn’t waiting in anticipation.

Dawn streamed thin over Pompeii, and no sooner had Felix turned onto the street of the seamstress’s shop than a flash of curls disappeared from the upstairs window. He carried the sword of Aurelia’s father, having reclaimed it from the belt of Julia’s snoring guard. Unsheathed, it glinted flat and grey in the morning light. Too old to fetch much coin – so what if Felix considered pawning it rather than returning it? – but the fantasy died when Aurelia barrelled through the door.

Only his growing familiarity with how she never acted by half reminded him to stand back.

‘Where is he?’ Aurelia demanded.

‘Morning to you, too,’ he said, dodging a shin kick.

‘Don’t joke.’ Hair a thundercloud, frizzy and falling from its braid, she looked a puffy-eyed mess. Felix wondered if she slept at all, or if nightmares had her tossing all night. He remembered her episode in the alley, her glazed expression and grave pronouncements, forgotten the moment she said them, but Felix didn’t know where to begin questioning her.

She was strange. Strange as Loren. No wonder the two got along.

Sighing, Felix relented. ‘He’s fine. Didn’t need me. Didn’t need either of us.’

‘Not true. Mamma says we all need each other.’

‘For some, that’s hard to admit.’

Aurelia stared dead-on. ‘Some like you?’

Felix felt again that odd effect, the same one Loren had on him, that his skin had turned invisible, and his vitals were exposed. He itched to cover up despite being dressed. Slowly, he said, ‘Part of my trade is working alone. I’m a thief, not a smuggler.’

‘That’s not it. I think thieves are the loneliest of us all.’ Aurelia sniffed, then snatched the sword and slammed the door in his face.

For a long moment, Felix stood in the street, trying not to feel the press of her words.The loneliest of us all.Aurelia didn’t know the first thing about what loneliness meant.

Or what the alternative could cost him.

He took the long way back to Julia’s, hoping Loren was still asleep so Felix could creep back into bed like he’d never left. A first for him. Anything to avoid a confrontation.

But as he came around the corner, a swathe of scarlet motion at the far end of the alley stopped him in his tracks. Apprehension flooded his veins. He had seen that colour before in Pompeii. Red dye, especially a shade so vibrant, cost a pretty penny.

Felix knew one man who could afford it.

Footsteps light, he clung to the shade as he approached the main road. He leaned out past the bricks, only enough to see the same scarlet cape turn a corner.Shit.Last time Felix saw that profile, he’d been at the other end of an arcing blade. Darius, the statesman’s guard – the man rapidly becoming Felix’s least favourite Pompeiian – was lurking in the early daylight in a part of the city he didn’t belong to.

Something was off.

His nerves prickled. Did the statesman know Felix had stayed at Julia’s? Had he dispatched Darius to break into the estate? Part of Felix itched to follow him. Itched for another glance at the statesman, to try – futilely – to place him in his blank memory. He gripped the wall, chewed his tongue, teetered.

But something dark twisted in his gut, a sense of disquiet, scratching his brain and calling him to Julia’s house. Felix needed to check. To see. He hadn’t survived these terrible days in this terrible city for Loren to die by some guard’s hands.

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