Page 68 of Roguefinder

Still smiling, Jesse turned back to his phone.

I chewed and swallowed. “Are you going to spank me for talking to Stefanos without running it by you first?”

Jesse finished whatever he was doing and slipped his phone in his pocket. His wolf flashed in his eyes as he plucked a cookie from the plate and broke it in half.

“Oh, honey. I was going to spank you either way.”

A half hour later, we thanked Consolata and made our way back into the heart of the city. Dark clouds had rolled over the buildings and turned the sky the color of slate. Thunder rumbled somewhere above the Vittoriano. Vespas laden with carryout bags sprinted past Romans on their lunch breaks.

My steps dragged a little, the day of sightseeing followed by carb-loading at Consolata’s making me want to faceplant into a nap.

As the first drops of rain started to fall, Jesse caught my sleeve and nodded toward a small, rust-colored building trapped between shops with displays of snowglobes and miniature Colosseums in their windows.

“That used to be a law firm,” he said, “but someone doing electrical work discovered Roman frescoes behind the walls. The restoration is ongoing. Not many people know about this place.”

“Let’s hit it up,” I said.

He gave me a closer look. “Are you too tired? We can come back⁠—”

“I’m good.” When he looked skeptical, I squared my shoulders. “I’ve played four quarters of football after six hours on a charter bus. I can handle some frescoes.”

The inside of the building was just as unimpressive as the outside. All signs of modern life had been stripped out, leaving Roman concrete and wooden scaffolding. A metal donation box was mounted near the entrance. Jesse fed it a handful of euros without breaking stride.

I wandered toward the far wall, where faded frescoes created an optical illusion of rows of pillars extending into a marble hallway. A geometric border ran around the top. Deep in the distance, tiny figures moved through a garden visible between the pillars. Time had worn the white-robed men and women to blurry suggestions, their details as faded as the paint.

A metal barrier rose to my hips, but the fresco was still within arm’s reach.

“They just leave this here where anyone can mess with it?” I asked. Back in New York, a town north of Hale Valley paid a security guard to watch over a single Civil War cannon.

Jesse came to my side. “Rome has more ancient sites than it knows what to do with. There are only so many resources to go around, and the people here live their whole lives surrounded by the past. Scratch the surface of any basement or parking lot and you’ll find a dozen layers of history. You can’t section off all of it when you’re living on top of it.”

I reached out, fingertips an inch from the painted hallway. “Do they know what this place was?”

“A private home, I think. Whoever lived here wanted visitors to think their house was bigger than it actually was.”

“Someone was a size queen,” I murmured.

Jesse’s soft snort echoed in the barren space. “Are you going to touch it?” He gave me a sharp look just as I bit my lip. “Don’t answer that.”

“Yes, Daddy.”

His sigh was louder than his snort.

I leaned forward and touched the fresco.

The room disappeared.

Color roared back first—an explosion of reds, creams, and yellows so bright it was like stepping into the sun.

Marble stretched under my feet. Lamps dangled from chains attached to the ceiling. More light blazed in the corners. A bird trilled from a tall, green cage on a side table next to a wooden sofa with long, red cushions and pillows shaped like fat sausages.

The rumble of voices made me turn. Men lounged on more sofas arranged around a low table laden with food. Their tunics were embroidered with thread as rich as the walls. Sandals littered the floor.

One of the men spoke in a tumble of consonants that sounded vaguely Italian. The rest broke into laughter. The first man swung his legs to the floor and stretched toward a glass pitcher sweating on the table.

“Caleb!”

I blinked hard.