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The silence that punctuated Livy’s questions grew longer. Finally, in the darkness, she felt him settle back on his absurd cushion.

“Livy?”

“Talk in the morning,” he mumbled.

She wanted to protest—surely this was more important than sleep—but then he began to snore. Safinia watched the dark shape of him; she could just make out the rise and fall of his chest, blacker than the forest beyond. Tomorrow, she thought. Tomorrow, on the walk back to Cures, he would tell her where he came from. And how he knew what he knew.

Every once in a while, Feronia gave her cultists visions. It had never happened to Safinia, though she’d always wanted it to. Nothing earth-shaking. But if she could close her eyes and see behind them Attice, old and happy, that would mean someday her sister would heal.

It was late. Later, now, than she would normally be asleep. But Safinia didn’t feel tired. She was too conscious of the body nearby, and how unlike her sisters it was. She blinked slowly, willing her eyelids to heavy.

He could be a liar, Safinia thought. A fraud. But somehow she didn’t think so.

Maybe it was something in his voice, too disinterested to lie, or that she had known stranger things than a man lost in the river of time. With her fingers in the dirt, Safinia could feel a consciousness that was greater than her own, a fathomless pool that was the sum of its parts, a goddess. If she stood still, she was sure something of her would be swirled into something not of her. She would grow roots; a tree nearby would be holding a bow. If you accepted you were small, all things were possible. Maybe Livy was one such consciousness, bumping against hers in Feronia’s cauldron. The dark lady had little concept of time—she gave Timaeus visions, insight by way of the sky and in the organs of a rabbit. Maybe she had given Safinia Livy.

It was a comforting thought. At least enough to calm her while she sat against a tree in between watching him sleep.

IX

Livy had still not woken by the time Safinia had checked her traps, claimed and dressed an unlucky rabbit, fetched her things from the tree she had hidden them in, and risked a small, buried fire to smoke the meat. She contemplated him, his cape pulled around and tucked with his fist under his chin.

Asleep, and with his curls half-flattened, half-pulled loose, he looked slightly mad. But the sun was up, and she still believed him.

She wondered if he would tell her about the future today. It would be interesting even just to know of battles between people she’d never heard of. And—she shivered a little at the thought—to know what would happen to the city. Cures was the oldest in all of Sabinum. It had stood at an epicenter of peace for as long as anyone could remember—but that didn’t mean it would never be sacked. If Livy knew when, she would want to know—she could move her sisters away before it happened. Or her nieces, or grand-nieces. He could tell her if plague would come, or famine.

Forget Lares. Safinia wouldn’t be a little stone figurine on the house shrine. She’d be a story. An ancestor leaving a message. When two hundred years have passed, move the family to Veii. Or something like that. A ver sacrum planned in advance.

Safinia dug her thumb into her shoulder until it hurt. One thing at a time. Hersilia first. “If he ever wakes up,” she muttered.

“I’m awake,” Livy mumbled, his eyes still closed. “Have mercy on an old man.”

“We should have gotten on the road hours ago. You’ve slept half the day away.”

He opened one eye. “It cannot be past the seventh hour.”

“I don’t know what that means, but seven seems like a lot.” She hiked her bag up on her shoulders and tied her quiver once it was settled. “I’ve been up for ages.”

“Seven is not a lot,” Livy said. He made another strangled sound of annoyance when he noticed his things already folded, packed, and ready to be slung on his back. “Seven wheat seeds, for example. Seven orphans on the streets of the Eternal City.”

“We have to get moving,” Safinia insisted. “I left home to find you. Now I’ve found you, and so it’s time to go home.”

“Yes, you mentioned last night.” Livy pulled a hand over his face, sitting up and blinking miserably. “I thought it would be prudent to tell you then that I have no intention of heading back to Cures Sabini.”

“What?” Safinia’s hands stilled. “You said you were looking for me, too.”

“Yes. Because I want to hire you.”

“Hire me?”

“As a guide. Or more appropriate to your skill set—a guard.” Livy yawned. “I was on my way to Crustumerium. I still intend to go.”

“But—” Safinia bit her tongue around an unreasonable burst of excitement. The salt road was only a hundred paces away, a furrow in the land that could take her anywhere. “I told my sisters I’d be home as soon as I found you.”

“And here I thought your first priority would be finding Hersilia.”

“Did you find something else?” Safinia asked. “Do you think she’s there?”

“She could be,” Livy said patiently. “I think it’s worth a visit, at least. I found several other messages originating from Crustumerium—she appeared to be very close to the governor’s daughter.”