Page 5

They’d sprawled in the eerily uniform orchard on her father’s land. Hersilia had stolen his maps from the tablinum. It amused her to make Safinia try to read them.

“You must practice,” Hersilia told her, pointing to a label that spanned a large portion of land, articulated in the loops and dots of Sabellic script. “When I’m a councilor, my favorite guard must know how to advise me.”

“Et . . . Et-rush,” Safinia said.

“Etruscan. All through here.” She traced a finger over the land north of Sabinum. “What about this city, here on the coast? You should know it, your mother went there once.”

Safinia looped an arm around Hersilia’s waist, pulling her into the soft ground. The map crumpled under their bodies. “Consider, for a moment, that you are never a councilor and I am never your guard. We could use this time for other things.”

Her hand wandered along Hersilia’s thigh.

“You will regret this someday,” Hersilia said. “Distracting me. You will need to read, and I will not be there to do it over your shoulder. Father wants everything written down, like the Greeks do.”

“We’re not Greeks. It’s silly. We know what we need to by speaking to each other.”

Hersilia gave up, then, shifting herself under Safinia, tangling a hand in the mess of her hair, opening her teeth to scrape Safinia’s lips, her neck. Her fingers moved in odd ways against Safinia’s skin. Safinia stilled to concentrate on each letter, her eyes closed. There was the start of her name, she could at least tell that.

“If you could read,” Hersilia had whispered to her. She could feel soft breath on her neck all these years later. “You would know what I have planned.”

Someone kicked Safinia’s shin—Anesia, jolting her out of her reverie. Night came earlier in the shadow of the city. It was almost full darkness. “Any luck?” Safinia asked.

Anesia grimaced. “No. You?”

“No.”

Mutual understanding passed between them. So they’d both managed to embarrass themselves. “I’ll see what Aulus’s mom can spare tomorrow,” Anesia said. One of their neighbors, with a large farm close to the Tiber. “She’s the one who gave me the figs.”

“We’d better get going. Attice will worry.”

“Wait!”

Safinia and Anesia turned. A slight woman shoved her way through a dice game that took up the whole alleyway. She had a harried, half-mad look about her—though unlike Safinia, her dishevelment still had an air of elegance. Slightly-too-large bracelets clattered on her wrist, and sweat made her dress cling. At a glance, she appeared far too wealthy to be this close to the south gate without a guard.

The woman came to a halt before them, bracing her hands on her knees to catch her breath. One of her sandals—embroidered leather, Safinia could not help noticing—was broken. “I’m so glad I caught up,” she panted. “I thought I’d have to find you in the outskirts.”

“Terrible punishment,” Safinia said mildly. “Can’t imagine how you’d endure it.”

The woman blanched. “I don’t mean to offend. I’ve never—I’m sure it’s—lovely.”

“Shh, just have a seat,” Anesia said, shooing Safinia off her crate and letting this overwrought woman take her place. “Aren’t you an Aurelius? Aurelia Orestilla?”

Even Safinia knew of that family. They were jewelers, with a workshop near the forum. Hersilia had been attached to it, though they were only a small shop.

“Yes,” Orestilla said. Her eyes were on Safinia. “I need to speak to you. Desperately.”

“Do I know you?” Safinia asked. Orestilla looked slightly too young to have been in Hersilia’s crowd back in the day, but there was something undeniably familiar about her. The sharpness of her chin, maybe.

“No. Maybe.” To Safinia’s alarm, Orestilla’s eyes welled with tears. She pressed the trailing sleeves of her stola to her eyes. “My—my sister has been missing for days. No one will believe me, that she needs help.”

Safinia could not help but wince. City girls rarely disappeared the way outskirts girls did—but in either case, the outlook would be grim. In the case of this Orestilla, merchant-class but as wealthy as a noble, it was probably kidnapping. Extortion would come later; the family would end up ruined.

“What does it have to do with us?” Anesia asked, and Safinia was surprised by her coolness.

Orestilla sniffed. “I heard you were asking around. For work.”

She turned her anxious eyes on Safinia again, something unsaid brimming in them. They were light, with flecks of gold and green, but if they’d been darker—if, when she smiled, her teeth were slightly too large, her tongue pressed behind them . . . When recognition hit, Safinia wondered how she could have missed it.

Maybe the Lares had done this. Perhaps the figs were enough for them. They were trading her a much bigger problem to punish her for dreading the worsening monotony. The dark of the city felt threatening, all of a sudden. It collapsed on them; the torchlight was a nauseating flicker.