Page 137 of The Dark Mirror

I returned to Ponte with nothing to show for my first excursion. Out of options, I checked Omnia.

TheForum Project(Italian: Progetto Foro) is an ongoing effort to reconstruct theRoman Forum. First proposed byGiosuè Barracoin 2020, and later galvanised byBeatrice Sala, the project aims to integrate the Forum back into public life. It has been partly funded by private donors and institutions. The project is scheduled for completion in the summer of 2061, thirty years after Barraco officially received permission to begin its restoration.

I read the whole entry, along with every article I could find on the Forum Project. There was a great deal of speculation, with an undercurrent of displeasure. Even if most Italians had accepted the Forum Project, the cost to the taxpayer was irritating a fair amount of people, including the Prime Minister. Some Italians felt that interfering with ruins was an act of outright vandalism. I skimmed the dossier myself, just in case Arcturus had missed anything, but he was thorough.

My stomach growled. I got up, wondering if meals were provided here, then shook my head. Venice really had given me notions.

I slotted my new card into a cash machine and used the money to buy a box of fresh pasta from a nearby restaurant. Once I was back in my room, I ate my supper, watching the Italian news on my data pad. All I could do now was wait until Verca landed in the morning.

My instincts told me to find Giosuè Barraco. He was an archaeologist and restoration architect, who had taught Sala at university. They had been close friends ever since, with Barraco stepping in when her father had died. She had no other living family. If she had entrusted her whereabouts to anyone, it had to be him.

Arcturus must have already left. I tried to stay awake until he returned, but by one in the morning, I hadn’t heard him. Trying not to worry, I slept.

The next day was even warmer. I drank my alysoplasm. My body was getting used to the poison, but it still caused a bout of cramps and dizziness.

I knocked for Arcturus, but there was no answer. After a moment, I tried to open the door, afraid he might have gone out and been caught, but it was bolted from the inside. He must be asleep.

Verca would be at the meeting place in an hour. I left early so I could stop for breakfast. A waitron showed me to a table in the shade, where I took out my phone. I was sure I had rarely looked at my phone in Scion, but people seemed obsessed with them out here.

Did you feed?

It took Arcturus a while to reply. The waitron brought me an iced coffee, which I sipped as I read.

It was more difficult than I anticipated. I will try again tonight.

This was his sixth day without aura. I had never known a Reph to abstain for so long.

You can’t wait any more, I wrote. My offer stands.

So does my answer.

I never thought you’d be this much of a fool.

I know how long it takes to succumb.

I couldn’t argue. He had learned the hard way.

Once I had eaten and forced down a couple of glasses of water, I paid and kept walking. As I closed in on the Forum, the streets became longer, the buildings grander. The sun beat down on my shoulders. I went up a steep flight of steps and skirted a public square, keeping to the shade of a colonnade. As soon as I emerged, I stopped dead.

A bronze wolf stood at the top of a column.

Slowly, I approached the sculpture, which included two boys sheltering under the wolf, mouths open to drink her milk. I suddenly remembered the shadow on the wall, thrown by the casting Nuray had made. Verca was gazing up at it, her expression troubled.

‘Verca,’ I said.

She came back to herself.

‘Paige,’ she said, sounding relieved. ‘Maria told me what happened with Cordier. Are you all right?’

‘Fine. Just a few scrapes.’

‘Tinman has a reputation, but this is worse than anything I’ve heard about their tactics. Pivot must be furious.’ She glanced at the sculpture again. ‘This is what I thought Nuray might have seen in her casting. It could be a coincidence, but it is strange that it’s so close to the place you want to investigate.’ She led me past it. ‘Let me show you the Forum.’

The next street curved downhill. We stood by a railing and looked out at a wealth of pale stone.

A triumphal arch loomed ahead. It obscured most of the Forum, but I could make out a white plaza beyond it. To our right were three magnificent Roman buildings, boasting tall columns and sculptures, their roofs tiled in green and blue and lavender. Two had scaffolding on them. Beyond all this, I glimpsed trees on another hill.

‘I take it you’ve read about the Forum Project,’ Verca said.

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