Beasts of the Eternal City

Previously

…“He has eyes everywhere, Archius,” she had warned, her voice barely a whisper as they navigated a passage choked with phosphorescent fungi. “And he does not tolerate disobedience.” His escape from the initial holding cell had been a testament to his Roman training, a blend of brute force and calculated risk. He’d used a sharpened shard of bone, pilfered from a discarded meal, to painstakingly work at the ancient locking mechanism. Each scrape was a gamble, each tiny click a jolt of adrenaline. When the final bar gave way, he’d slipped out into the echoing darkness, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. Lyra met