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“I didn’t think anyone in our way of life had cause to read.” Even her mother had only known what was necessary to send battlefield messages, a shorthand that was more symbols than letters. “Let alone could get their hands on this much paper.”

Timaeus shrugged and handed her the bird. “Let me walk you to the shrine. There’s a bigger one for travelers this way.”

They paced the road for a mile or two, Timaeus leading, Safinia studying the set of his shoulders as if she could discern what he was thinking, as blood leaked from the chicken slung around her neck.

The shrine he led her to was more permanent than the ones that dotted the woods: Trees that were once young and lashed together had grown curved over a large stone, carved with Feronia’s name, and more symbols besides—pleas for safe travel.

She cut the chicken’s neck and held it by its feet, letting the blood stream into the stone’s well. Timaeus leaned against a tree nearby and watched; Safinia had the feeling, not an unfamiliar one with him, that he was evaluating her as a father would his child.

“Well?” Safinia asked once she’d extracted the heart, liver, and intestines and piled them at the base of the shrine. She wiped her hand on the hem of her tunic, but blood remained, seeped dark and spidery into the lines on her palm. “Have I earned myself a safe journey?”

“You should be fine. I saw nothing amiss with the bird’s organs.”

Safinia straightened. She was reluctant to get moving again; Timaeus had been gone for months. And standing here, her feet on this ground, she was no farther than she’d ever been. She was still safely in her territory.

“Did you go to the grove this winter?” Safinia asked. “I didn’t see you for months.”

“I did. Are you ready to know the way?”

He asked this question about once a season. She never was. Lucus Feroniae was a sacred place for Feronia’s cultists. Safinia thought it was somewhere across the Tiber, where the heart of the forest—at least as far as she could see from a tall tree—turned a green that was as dark as evening. If she had to guess, that spot was the oldest of the entire woods. All else, trees blanketing the hills in every direction, were the children and grandchildren of a mother tree that stood at the center.

Timaeus had estimated the journey there to be about three days, once. But even that had felt too long to leave for. Before Orestilla had come along.

“Not yet,” Safinia said, remembering her duty to find Hersilia. “Too many ties.”

“Isn’t that always how it goes.” Timaeus stretched, sliding his bow off his shoulder and unrolling a bundle of sinew to string it. “You needn’t be tetherless to leave, though. You could be a flock, instead of one bird.”

Safinia snorted. “You’re mistaking me for my mother.”

“Never,” Timaeus said, smiling. “Calliste’s way was different. But don’t think yourself incapable of great things, as she was. Maybe leading is in your blood.”

She didn’t like to think so. What was he even proposing—breaking away from Cures like some bandit lord? It would be hard enough to live on scraps herself, in the wilderness, without hanging other people around her neck. Changing the world, making cities—those were a child’s dreams. Maybe someone like Hersilia could keep them alive. Not Safinia. “I’ll tell you if I change my mind.”

He didn’t answer, only lifted a hand in departure. That was as much a goodbye as she ever got from him before he melted back into the trees. Safinia always scanned to see if she could catch him slipping through the woods and never could. He was nowhere in a moment, or else as still and invisible as one tree in a hundred.

Maybe it was to keep her from following him before she was ready. She wanted to go. She would bring Attice to the grove someday, if Anesia was ever settled with someone Safinia trusted. She’d heard that cultists walked on fire for their worship. She wanted to see Attice among them, her wounds finally cauterized. Safinia wanted it herself, to feel pain run up her calves, the blood warm and traveling until it reached her heart and thawed it completely.

One thing at a time. Safinia turned south.

It was still early in the season for summer raids—in a month or two, the salt road would be impassable for a solo traveler, as raiding parties from Etruria, Latium, and Rome nibbled along Sabinum’s border. For now, it was quiet—a few travelers passed Safinia, unaware of her as she paced alongside the road in the forest.

The late afternoon wore into a vivid sunset; Safinia stopped where the trees thinned and turned her face up to the light. It was startling how much this part of the forest looked like hers, yet was unfamiliar. She had to keep doubling back as she walked, making sure she wasn’t losing sight of the road.

When she returned, the cues she used to orient herself as she hunted would be changed. Few were permanent—say she found a warren of rabbits as she turned left from the first tree to flower in spring . . . by the time its fellows flowered, too, she would have mapped the currents of mud underfoot that would lead her back. By the time it rained and the mud changed, she would follow dung and tufts of fur stuck in pricker bushes—wolves, who by then had found her warren, too. She would have to learn it all again when she returned.

The trees around her now were quiet, revealing nothing to a passing visitor.

She might at least string some traps before settling in to sleep. It was better to treat her supply of dried meat as emergency only.

The sun seemed to slip away faster than it did at home. Safinia rushed to stow her spare food up a tree and get the blood washed off her hands before full dark. There was a little spring near the clearing she chose; the water was colder than she expected, a good sign that it was fresh. She would come back in the morning to strain some for drinking.

What had she forgotten? It was strange to prepare for bed this early in the evening, without Attice and Anesia to share her rituals.

“Are you really not going to clean your teeth?”

Safinia yelped—the speaker was behind her, leaning against a tree. When she whirled around, she had no idea how she could have missed him. He was swathed in silks again, a green toga that might have made good camouflage if it wasn’t trimmed in bright yellow and had there not been a blue cape thrown over one shoulder. And if he hadn’t been dripping in gold things: his belt, his rings, the ties that fastened his sleeves.

Livy grinned at her, looking quite proud of himself.