I woke with my tongue brushing my lips: the hippocampus had left me a faint taste of Clara's peach lip gloss. For a moment, the memory of her flared bright, tightening my stomach, only to gutter out as soon as I realized I was still in the tub.
My bones creaked like old timber. I dressed slowly, with the stubborn care of someone unwilling to shake off a dream. Through the Gothic rose window came the last rays of the dying black sun, retreating behind the jagged rooftops.
I sat at the desk. I pulled out the leather pouch and let the coins roll across the wooden surface: a symphony of chimes I would have recognized among a thousand. One, two, three… twelve. I froze. Twelve? No — there should have been thirteen. I counted again: twelve. Worry closed a fist around my throat. Which one was missing? I ran through Jerome's list in my head, name by name. And then I stopped. It couldn't be.
Tiberius' aureus was gone.
A cold blade slid through my stomach. That coin wasn't just precious metal: it was Clara's wedding gift. She had spent her savings to find it, knowing how impossibly picky I'd always been about avoiding specimens that looked like caricatures. But that coin was perfect: proud, regal, almost alive. When she placed it in my hands, set in its crystal-and-gold pendant — "so you can keep him close to your heart" — I had seen the childlike gleam of someone who knows they've chosen the right gift.
A wave of anger surged at Jerome. I stood up, furious, and lit the golden lamp on the desk. No light. I cursed, felt for the bulb, and discovered it was oil-fed. I found a Zippo in a drawer and felt like the luckiest man in the Underworld as I lit the wick: the flame rose timidly, then steady. One by one, I tended to every lamp in the room, chandelier included.
In the dim, trembling glow, the room turned spectral. I moved cautiously, as if something might spring out at any moment, careful never to turn my back on the ceramic cherubs.
Through the rose window I saw hooded figures outside, moving from lamppost to lamppost, lighting them with long poles. Intrigued, I was almost tempted to go out like a tourist eager to explore the nightlife, but reason won — reminding me where I was. Anxiety tightened in my chest, and seized by a sudden memory I rummaged in the same drawer where I'd found the lighter: a horn pipe, damp tobacco, a couple of matches. Perfect.
I stepped out onto the wrought-iron balcony to smoke. Below me, a string of tiny lights slithered along the decumanus, glimmering on the surface black as spilled oil. The silence was total, unnatural. Only my breath and the crackle of the tobacco existed.
I looked up: the sky was ink, vacant of stars. A thin fear caught me — the fear of cosmic solitude, of Clara's absence. I emptied the pipe and went back inside, shaken, eyes wet. I put on a nightshirt and hid the pouch of coins beneath the covers.
It was while shaking out my jacket that I heard it: a metallic chime. At my feet lay the missing aureus, inside its crystal pendant, as if it had materialized from nowhere. I picked it up with trembling hands. It was beautiful — alive — its golden surface throwing white glints in the lamplight. I hung it around my neck and swore never to part with it again.
Morning came with the noise from the street. I dressed quickly, eager to begin exploring my new world.
Descending the tower stairs, I paused at the reception. Belle was there — a constant behind the counter, like death or the bill. The smile she gave me was warm, almost maternal. "Did you rest well, messere?" she asked in her soft voice. I nodded, but had the impression her eyes were giving me a full body scan. I cleared my throat; she immediately recomposed herself, masking the tension behind forced professionalism.
Outside, the street roared. The crowd pushed, shouted, bargained — a swarm of tongues and dialects hit me like a shockwave. Yet slowly, I learned to breathe inside that chaos.
I discovered the city was built on three levels. The Acropolis, unattainable unless summoned by the supreme administrator — whose name no one dared speak. Below it, the bourgeois district where I had settled: façades of dignity, shops, old palaces. And at the bottom, the port — a den of the desperate, riddled with shacks, where I promised myself I'd never set foot.
The urban layout was pure madness. Whatever surfaced lost its original function once the inhabitants repurposed it: nineteenth-century British factories turned into markets and fairs, dead train carriages serving as shops, Doric temples with waiters serving at tables under the pronaos. Even an overturned ship had become a junk dealer's den.
No street had a name. Apart from the main cardo and decumanus, everything else was an anonymous labyrinth. If not for the inn's tower, I'd never have found my way back. I wondered how the locals navigated the confusion, perhaps simply accustomed to it.
And yet, within that mess, there was balance. As if some unseen authority kept watch. My thoughts drifted to the famous podestà no one ever named. A man? A demon? Appointed by Charon, or older than him? The questions circled without answer as I wandered aimlessly.
I merged back into the crowd. My thoughts tangled again with the impossible architecture around me when, from a side street, a man dressed in red appeared. Nightshirt, purple cap. He walked calmly, ignored by all. I stared at him as if seeing a ghost: Dante, I thought. Dante Alighieri.
I followed him, pushing through bodies, struggling not to lose him: Cardo Maximus, a ten-meter Moai Paro, then a chaos of dirt alleys, Romanesque churches, a fragment of what I swore was the Palace of Knossos, Babylonian blue walls, a Korean stone pagoda. I chased him, panting, until I lost him beside a generous slice of Persian apadana.
"Damn it," I hissed.
Then I saw him again: stepping out of a Phoenician-amphora shop, heading calmly toward the port. The street was almost empty — lunchtime. I sprinted.
"Sir!" I shouted.
Nothing. He kept walking.
"Sir!" I repeated, almost on him now.
He stopped. Turned. A thin, olive-skinned face, regular cheekbones, a full beard. Not Dante.
"Are you speaking to me, messere?"
Disappointed, I apologized. He laughed with dark, shining eyes. Without prompting, he uttered visionary phrases, weaving philosophy with madness, then took his leave. I watched him disappear around the corner, but his final words clung to me: "This world is barren of all virtue, filled and covered with malice. A wise soul once told me that when the present world is crooked, the reason must be sought in men. But here, the rules walk a particularly unequal path. And who knows — perhaps someone will break them, one day…"
I shook my head. Wise and bizarre, that Dante cosplayer.
I was heading back when a sign caught my eye: a red board, a wooden rose, a Latin inscription — Terribilis est Locus Iste. I halted. The first letters I had seen in this world. And that rose… the Rose of Virtues.
I drew the tarot card: the Hanged Man smiled slyly, arm extended in that same direction.
My heart hammered. Coincidences like this don't exist. Either fate — or a trap. Perhaps the false Dante had been my white rabbit.
I shrugged. Why set traps for someone who would walk into them anyway?
I pushed the door open and stepped inside.