‘Because it only just happened,’ he said, masking his fluster with ease. ‘He jolted to his feet and made a dash for it.’
An utter lie. Loren didn’t strike Felix as the lying type. His feelings were too loud for that. But here, with this girl, he acted plenty practised in keeping secrets. Felix puzzled at the contradiction. Where it stemmed from.
What else Loren might be hiding.
‘Loren . . .’ started the woman, suspicion thick.
‘Camilia,’ Loren countered. ‘Shall I fetch the Priest?’
Camilia eyed him a beat too long. ‘Go on. Let’s get this over with.’
If one word could send Felix over the edge, it waspriest.
In the taverns and gambling dens Felix frequented, drunk men often played the game of association. You’d throw out a word, then the table spat out whatever term first came to mind. So even something innocent, likebed, turned out an answer liketits. Usually crass. Rarely clever, but the men roared with laughter regardless.
Felix wasn’t laughing now.
His deepest instincts associatedpriestwithpain, two things he tried his best to avoid. Two things he’d found in abundance in Pompeii.
The Priest of Isis, waiting on a stool by the altar, didn’t seem thrilled to meet Felix either. Almost as if even he knew this ritual, whatever it served, wouldn’t make an inch of difference to the gods. Camilia led Felix over, still bound. Curling, sweet smoke soothed his headache.
‘What’s your name?’ asked the Priest. Felix wondered if he cared about the answer or if this was his way of being polite. Felix didn’t do polite.
‘Fuck,’ he said.
The Priest frowned. ‘That is not a proper name, son.’
‘I’m not a proper person.’
Someone stifled a nervous laugh. Loren, maybe.
The Priest scratched his chin before grumbling under his breath. A grouchy woman passed him a bone-handled knife. The bindings around Felix’s wrists slid free, but Camilia gripped his shoulders. No chance of fleeing. She wrestled his arm onto the altar, tender palm exposed.
‘Not the hand,’ Felix snapped, curling his fist. His hands were his source of income. Scarred tissue was less dexterous. Deadly for a thief.
Camilia glared, but she repositioned his forearm to the centre of the altar. Then she produced a clay cup of floral wine – Eumachius,not Lassius, so at least someone here had decent taste – and poured it over Felix’s skin, staining it red.
‘Goddess Isis,’ the Priest intoned. ‘We call upon you to grant us clemency. Accept this offering.’
The grouchy twins knelt, hands to the sky. A moment later, Loren followed. Felix’s attention snagged on the turn of his thin wrists, his fine-boned fingers. Silly, inconsequential details to notice. Distractions.
The Priest plunged the knife in a silver flash.
The blade pierced Felix’s vein, inky blood pooling, and he stifled a cry. It stung worse than the cuts on his calves, somehow. Maybe because Felix had anticipated it.
Or maybe because it put him at the mercy of another priest.
‘Guide us through death . . .’
Felix hissed as the knife slid deeper, then crossed an X in the bend of his arm.
‘. . . and the afterlife . . .’
Legs buckling, Felix collapsed against the altar. Blood chased wine, running in rivulets down white marble to pool on uneven tile.
‘. . . back to the world of the living,’ the Priest continued, gaze cast up. ‘Protect our city from the earth’s turmoil. See our sacrifice, and know it is in your honour.’
The blood made Felix’s head spin. He stared, dumbstruck, as smoke from the altar bowl took shape, took flight, the splay of wings. Up, up.
