Page 64 of Vesuvius

White.

This world, and the one where he died. Images flickered in and out, switching between her vision and the festival crowd. Loren couldn’t tether himself to either. He felt . . .

‘Take his hand,’ Aurelia rasped, glassy eyes a thousand miles away. ‘Take it.’

Fingers gripped his wrist.

Pulled.

Felix’s ghostly face shattered.

Loren tore his palm from Aurelia’s cheek with a cutting gasp, fingers blistering. She wavered where she knelt, as if she might tip sideways. He’d never seen her do this before. Not once.

Hysteria choked him. ‘What does that mean? What are you trying to show me?’

He didn’t know who he asked. Aurelia, the gods, did it matter?

‘Loren,’ she whispered. ‘He was there. I see you, too.’

‘What’ – his voice broke – ‘am I doing?’

But Aurelia only shook her head. ‘Loren, I think . . .’

‘Aurelia.’

She looked at him with a sadness far beyond her years. ‘You can’t stop the fire.’

‘No.’ Loren recoiled. ‘No.’

Of all the things Aurelia could have said, that burned the worst. All his years spent toiling in Pompeii, facing dead ends and mockery by day and murder and catastrophe in his dreams, but Loren was doomed to fail anyway. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t.

Felix said something. Something urgent. Worried. But it was as if Loren were submerged in a bath, head underwater, all sounds muffled except for Aurelia’s sombre tone, alone in a bubble all their own.

‘Loren!’

His ears popped. Music, laughter, talking. It came back in a sudden rush: where they were, who they were, the fact that Felix was gripping Loren’s shoulders tightly, stopping him from slumping. Felix’s hands seared imprints into Loren’s skin, through the layers of fabric. He wanted to lean into it, let Felix hold him here, grounded, for ever.

They didn’t have for ever, and Felix wasn’t his to keep.

Loren lurched up, knees shaking, dimly aware he pushed Felix off him, and his dizzy mind mourned for the lost contact. People gawked. Of course they did, he’d had a fit in the middle of a festival. When he glanced down, Aurelia had slipped from his side like she’d never been there to begin with.

‘What happened? What did you see?’ Felix asked. For the first time since Loren had jolted back to reality, he looked at Felix properly. Felix’s skin had drained of colour, grey eyes urgent. He was scared. It looked all wrong on his face.

They’d been dancing, Felix’s hand on Loren’s waist.

Loren swallowed, throat parched. Too late, he realised he was staring. Face burning, he dropped his gaze to the ground. Thoughts raced, tripping over each other. He needed something to do. Something to centre the energy boiling inside him before he burst.

‘I need to find Julia,’ he blurted, then dived into the crowd, desperate for distance. To keep his fingers from shaking, he braided his hair. Picked it apart. Started over. Voices raged in his mind, all demanding attention. Aurelia. Julia. The letter. A city on fire. Felix’s handon his waist.

The memory replayed over and over, a tune Loren couldn’t put from his head. What had he been thinking, getting distracted by a dance like that? Distracted by Felix, the boy Loren used to fear? Maybe Loren’s father was right. His brain was addled beyond hope.

In Loren’s dreams, Felix always died. He started the fire.

Now Loren knew how: by wearing the helmet.

He wasn’t working fast enough to solve Felix’s mystery. He needed something he could fix rightnow. Something straightforward, to get Servius off Felix’s back for just a moment. Something like the letter.

Julia stood outside Apollo’s temple, speaking with one of the councilmen. Rather, the councilman spoke. For her part, Julia merely watched, bored. When she caught Loren’s approach, she brushed the councilman aside and slipped away.

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