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For a moment, Safinia was tempted—even with the insult to Mettius’s honor, if Tarpeia actually wanted her to stay, maybe it was because she knew something. But then she saw the glitter in Tarpeia’s eyes. The amusement at her expense. Safinia turned.

“Wait,” Tarpeia said. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

She stood and grabbed Safinia’s wrist before she could go any farther. Safinia was about to yank free when Tarpeia surprised her, striding forward, pulling Safinia out of the courtyard and into a little alleyway where the chef took deliveries. It stunk of meat. “So dramatic, honestly,” Tarpeia said. “You never would have spoken to me this way when you thought Hersilia was going to sweep you off your feet. I like it quite a bit more than dutiful, stoic Safinia.”

“We can agree Hersilia has terrible taste in company,” Safinia said. “Are you ready to tell me where she really is?”

“I told you, she’s home.”

“But she isn’t, is she.” Safinia studied Tarpeia, who studied her fingernails. “A couple of other women are missing, too, right?”

Tarpeia shrugged.

“Say something useful or I’m leaving.”

“Fine.” Tarpeia narrowed her eyes. “We were meant to travel south this summer. There’s a girl, southern, the daughter of some governor, that Hersilia wanted to speak to in person. Maybe they decided to meet early. I know she’s not at home. I can see her window from the roof of my building. It’s been dark for days.”

“What about the others?”

“Three or four. All of them younger than us, but from good families. One of them, Sarturia, she really might have run away. Ever since marriage negotiations have started she’s been afraid her father will marry her off to a brute.”

Safinia frowned. “Would he have?”

“Who knows? But I’d take a brute over being on my own. At least if you’re married to one you can try to manage their temper.” Tarpeia’s mouth twisted. “I’ve been promised to three in as many years. Hersilia said she had someone better for me, though.”

“I can’t say I envy that,” Safinia said. She could choose for herself and her sisters, as head of the family—a father in the absence of any other. She knew she would choose no one for Attice and herself. And for Anesia—there was no one she trusted enough to take care of her little sister. Tarpeia’s father clearly didn’t care about her safety.

A cloud skittered over the sun, dropping the alleyway briefly into shade. Both women glanced up, as if someone could be listening to them.

Standing close, Tarpeia’s face read exactly as Safinia felt. A feeling of understanding passed between them, thick with unsaid and long since swallowed frustration. Then Tarpeia tossed her hair and broke the moment. “Anyway, I can’t imagine you can do anything that the king couldn’t.” She lowered her voice. “Just find Hersilia. And if she’s worried me for nothing, give her a good slap.”

Safinia nodded, as Tarpeia turned on her heel and went back to the courtyard, leaving the thick, honeyed scent of her perfume clinging to Safinia’s skin. Safinia worked her lip under her teeth, thinking. She hadn’t learned anything Orestilla didn’t already relay—the only girls being targeted so far were those on the marriage market. But it would be so stunning an insult to simply make off with a bride whose father hadn’t agreed that Safinia couldn’t believe that it had happened with no uproar. That was the sort of thing that started a blood feud.

Maybe they were being ransomed, and their families were afraid to react—but Safinia had never known these families to value a daughter over answering an insult. Maybe they’d been paid off.

Why had Tarpeia mentioned the king, who everyone knew was doddering, and not Numa, Hersilia’s father? Surely she knew it would be him doing something about it. Cures Sabini would go to pieces without Numa’s advisements.

It was a blessing, Safinia thought, that old age and apathy had made the king completely reliant on Numa’s counsel. Hersilia’s father was a genius, with an eye for progress and piety both. Some said he was advised himself by nymphs and the gods; certainly he was ambitious. The king gave him free rein for his projects. She could spend all day naming the offices and institutions that Numa had his fingers in.

Numa Pompilius should have been king, Safinia thought. She wondered if he’d ever considered it before. Hersilia, at least, made no secret of what she could accomplish if she were a queen.

Mettius was not waiting for her where he said he would be. It took Safinia over an hour to track him down to a cramped corner chef in the city-south—the light that was left was thin and orange and could not penetrate the thick tangle of buildings, some of them so close together Safinia had to turn sideways to sidle past them. She found Mettius with his head in his hands, slid to a seat in an alleyway.

Safinia crouched and snapped her fingers in front of his unfocused eyes. “Drying out?”

He looked at her sadly. “Drinking is all I do well now.”

“Well, get up. Your father needs his donkey back.”

“I hate that creature.” Mettius lurched to his feet and looked at Safinia so balefully that she let him lean on her. He’d carried her home enough times in their teens to consider it a favor owed, even if she struggled under his weight. “I pray that Sabus will take it for ver sacrum. Let it wander the wilderness awhile, and us get some favor out of it.”

Safinia laughed. “You’ve missed your chance. Proper sacrifices leave for their ver sacrum twenty years after disaster. The donkey is at least a hundred.”

“Traditionalist,” he muttered.

They wove through the streets together, taking a more direct route back to the north gate, where Gaius’s donkey waited dutifully. It hadn’t seemed to occur to the creature that it could wander away—Mettius had not even bothered to lash it properly to a post—nor had it occurred to anyone else to steal it. It slept next to the small shrine to Sabus—Cures Sabini’s guardian ancestor—that marked the city gates, front legs bent.

On the walk back, it wasn’t the donkey that needed to be herded in the right direction, but Mettius. Half a mile from the city, he stumbled out of her arms and lurched forward into the grass. Safinia sighed and helped him onto his elbows, smoothing the curls from his forehead as he retched.