‘Not lost,’ said Ghost-Felix.
‘Stay out of my thoughts.’
‘But they’re such a nice respite. So little going on in your mind, it’s almost peaceful.’
‘Good one. Yes, Loren is dim. Very original.’ Loren breathed to cool his temper. Rancid air left a tang on his tongue. ‘If his memories aren’t lost, why can’t he take them back?’
‘Exactly like you to assume he had a choice. That either of us did. They meddled with our mind. Took it away. Told us it was for our own good.’ Ghost-Felix stepped closer, voice hissing sharp as the steam shooting between jagged black rocks. He flickered in and out, as if tethered by an unsteady connection. ‘They – he – stripped it from him, not realising doing so created me to hold it. All the memories, and all the anger they contain. Wasn’t that monstrous?’
‘Who? Who did it?’
‘Keep up,’ he snarled. ‘Our –myfather, he’s mine, only I remember him. I’m the one who suffered when we were wrenched apart. To protect us, Da’ said.’
None of this made sense. The ghost spoke in riddles. Protect Felix from what? What good would tearing memories from him do? Suspicion thickened in Loren’s mind, fear that his brutal, bloody visions weren’t warnings. They were threats. Somewhere, dormant deep inside Felix, was a power or plague, raw as the paint Loren smeared on the walls as a child. Something others felt best locked away.
Loren stared at the ghost with fresh horror. Despite the slow roasting of his skin, the realisation cast cold water through his blood. ‘If he remembers, he’ll become you.’
‘I am not what his memories make him,’ Ghost-Felix said. ‘But I’m angry at being trapped alone with no way to reach him. I’ve held this on my own since we were eleven. When he learns, it will be his turn to hold the anger. It would remake him.’
Or unravel him. Bile rose up Loren’s throat. ‘I want to help him. Tell me how.’
‘You won’t. You’re afraid.’ Sneering, the ghost turned his cheek, hugging the helmet. ‘By now you’ve realised there are pieces he won’t recall, and there are pieces he cannot, and his line between them blurs. But wouldn’t you want to remember? To have that choice?’
‘I want to help him,’ Loren repeated, weaker than before.
‘Then you understand what I ask.’
Loren wanted to scream that he didn’t, that the ghost hadn’t said a single helpful thing, that he’d been trying to help Felix all along, but the ghost stood in his way. But his eyes dropped to the helmet, held by pale, familiar hands.My helmet, the ghost had said. And Loren understood. Whatever memories Felix couldn’t access, the helmet must be strong enough to destroy what stood in the way.
‘He thinks coincidence drew him to Pompeii,’ said Ghost-Felix, ‘but a far greater power called him here. I cannot say the role he’s to play. It’s not my grief to share. But I can tell you yours. Days ago, you told him never to put the helmet on, and he won’t, unless you say otherwise. You are as much a part of this as he is.’
The role he’s to play. Nonna’s warning crashed through Loren’s mind, that the wielder of the helmet was doomed to be a pawn.
Fear burned away until Loren had nothing left but fury.
‘Felix resists control at every turn,’ he snapped, impatience bursting. ‘He won’t play a role he doesn’t want to play. I’ve spent my lifehaving my words dismissed. They have no power. That he hasn’t put it on has nothing to do with me.’
‘Then you’re more oblivious than I thought. Everything has to do with you. Destiny demands you be together when he comes into his power. Our fates have always been tied.’
‘I am not part of the destruction. I won’t let you twist me into a villain. Let me go if I worsen your situation. For years you’ve haunted me, not the other way around.’
‘You think I wanted this? You are the only one whose mind is open enough – or empty enough – to receive me. You say you’re cursed, but I’m cursed to be stuck with you to hear. Hear, but never listen.’
‘Then letFelixgo.’
‘I don’t want him, either,’ Ghost-Felix seethed. The ground jolted, shuddered, and Loren fought for balance against the sudden quake. ‘I hate him. I am him.’
‘You are not’ – Loren panted – ‘him.’
Ghost-Felix coiled tighter, and Loren glared him down, anger shooting sparks to his fingertips. If he wanted a fight, Loren could give him one. Stones rocked, a cacophonous groaning in the mountain’s belly. Scalding jets of air bit and scratched.
No lunge came, no lash fell. Loren stood his ground.
Instead, the ghost crumpled the way all unloved things did.
He folded his body in, made himself small, bracing for a blow that, though dreaded, would not be unexpected – as if the ghost feared Loren’s swing. Sizzling gravel crunched when Ghost-Felix dropped to sit, knees pulled close. The helmet rolled away, freed from loose arms that came to cover his face. The ground stilled.
Loren’s ribs ached. He hated that he felt even scraps of pity for this phantom after so many years of torment. But as he stared down his nose at the boy on the ground, chest heaving, for the first time hestruggled to separate this Felix from his. His eyes stung. He couldn’t stand to see any version of Felix so shattered.
