Wasting no time, King hopped the fence, climbed the shambled staircase, and entered the ruins, which were raised up several feet atop what remained of the foundation. As Pierce debated following—this was a major breach of archaeological protocol—he noticed that King had his weapon drawn. Knowing King would not do so without reason, he climbed over the fence and followed his friend into the remains of the ancient temple.

Entering a clearing at the center of the temple ruins, Pierce found King quickly moving from one feature to the next. Foundation stones, step fragments, wall remains—nothing escaped his scrutiny. “Any particularly interesting history I should know about?” he asked.

“Nothing outstanding. The location of the temple is supposed to be where Castor and Pollux came to water their horses after their successful battle. The Senate gathered here for a time and later housed a few different Roman offices, but nothing extraordinary.”

“And nothing related to Hercules.”

“Just the lineage.”

“Then what should I be looking for?”

“Honestly, I was kind of hoping there would be an engraving like we found beneath Gibraltar.”

“The Herculean Society’s symbol.” King frowned. He’d hoped Pierce’s lead would be more substantial, but they were searching for a location that had been kept secret in the heart of Rome for thousands of years. It wouldn’t be found that easily.

Slowed by the loud revelry of nearby late-night Roman parties and the rumble of vehicles, both of which kept King on edge for intruders, they spent an hour searching every nook and cranny of the site.

And found nothing.

Sweating from the humid Roman heat and discouraged by the apparent dead end, King sat on a stone and looked up at the cloudy sky. Silhouetting the temple’s three columns, the moon’s glow had just begun to pierce the thinning cloud cover.

Pierce sat next to him. “Sorry. This was the best I could come up with.”

“Don’t beat yourself up. I asked you on a hunch to find something that might not even be here. This was my idea.”

“Your hunches typically save a lot of lives.”

“Not always the ones that matter.”

Pierce stood. “Well, we’ve looked everywhere at this site. I think we should check out the temple of Jupiter. We’ve got a few hours of darkness left.”

After walking a few steps, Pierce turned around and found King still sitting. His eyes were fixated on the three columns. “What?”

“We haven’t looked everywhere,” King said before standing and heading for the columns.

Pierce realized what King was about to do and attempted to voice a protest. “King, wait. You can’t—”

But King was already scaling one of the outside columns like a champion logger. Pierce flinched as he heard crumbs of column falling onto the marble base. If Augustina finds out about this, he thought, she might turn me in herself.