“What?” The sentry’s eyes widened with mock innocence. “In that direction, you must be going to the Villa Adriana. And you know how I love history.”
“Go back to your patrol,” Alcides said, through gritted teeth.
Only then did I realize that, while I’d been thinking of Alcides as a kid, he might very well have been thinking of us as peers. He would have been, what, about a decade younger than me? And strangers usually pegged me as younger than I was, somewhere in my early twenties.
“The area is fine,” Alcides’ father said. “This is more interesting.”
And so we ended up continuing the walk with the sentry, riding his pegasus like a terrestrial horse alongside us. Because that wasn’t awkward at all. Alcides was obviously disgruntled, and took pains to ignore his father.
I wasn’t happy
