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She curled her hands around Mettius’s elbows and let him hold her close. When they were teenagers they could lie in the grass together and watch the sun and never run out of things to talk about. Couldn’t that be enough, if they found it again? Mettius tipped his head and his tongue slid against hers. She could not help herself; her hand wove tightly into his curls.

There was no point to marriage. They didn’t need it for sex, nor for friendship. She realized: He was trying to do exactly as she had once suggested, take a wife so that the rumors stopped. But she hadn’t been offering herself.

Safinia pushed him away, stumbling as she disentangled her shaking limbs, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “I’m going back to Ores’s place.”

“Saffie—”

“No,” Safinia said. “I’m not going to let you hide behind me.”

“That isn’t what I meant.”

“If you want to repair your reputation, find a way that doesn’t involve making me property,” Safinia hissed. “I’m not here to make you feel like a man.”

“Come on, Safinia!” he yelled. “What would you be losing? Can’t you see how fucked up I’ve been? You and your sisters, Orestilla—you all make me feel like I have a chance to be better! Like I used to be.”

“Do you think so little of me?” she asked. “Is there nothing you can imagine in my life more important than being—the suture on your wounds?”

“Is this about Orestilla?”

Safinia nearly choked. “What about her?”

“Anyone can see she has a hold on you—what, a pretty girl cries in your garden and you’ll move the sky so that she gets what she wants?” Mettius’s face was dark with anger. “It’s time to grow up. You’ve lost Hersilia. When this business with Rome is settled, Ores’ll go back to her life, and you’ll go back to yours. Life is going to go on as usual.”

“This business with Rome is going to be war, Mettius. I wanted to tell you—I spoke to Numa, and—”

“Orestilla said you might say something about him. Safinia, I’m not saying she’s right and you’re wrong, but—what difference could it make to us?” He stepped to the side to block her from storming off. “What, a few city Quirites are gone? It’s for the important people to work out among themselves. Maybe it’ll be ransom, maybe it’ll be war, maybe Rome will just eat itself for lack of better prey. If it’s war, we can go to siege together. If it’s not, then your life is a little better with me.”

She was quiet, the inside of her cheek ragged from biting it in waves of frustration. “You’ve always had the power to make my life a little better,” Safinia said. It was true. All those years he’d become distant with her, bored when she told him her worries.

“Safinia—”

She put her hand on his chest to quiet him. His anger had drained away as quickly as it had come, but acceptance had not arrived in its place. She could see all over his face, in the rigid lines of his shoulders, that he wanted to fight with her all night, or simply sling her over his shoulder and not let her go until she saw sense. He would always be a man in that way.

“I’ll be on the fence for your match tomorrow,” she said.

He tried again. “Safinia—”

“Mettius.” Safinia folded her arms. He would see how determined she was if he met her eye. He would understand how she’d narrowed down this only option for herself and her sisters. Maybe he would see the tinge of regret she felt, too—that if she hadn’t known all she did, about Romulus, about the coming danger, it might have been harder to say no to him. But he threw up his hands, turning, and left her to walk back to Orestilla’s alone.

Only Attice was awake when Safinia returned; Orestilla and Anesia had fallen asleep without even finishing the game of Latrones they’d set out, and the twins were sprawled in a heap on the mats, managing to take up nearly all the space laid out for six people.

Attice, though, was mending something—one of Orestilla’s stolas, probably, since the material was finer than anything they owned besides the one Livy had given Safinia.

“It’s a pleasure to sew this,” she murmured as Safinia sat down and laid her head against her shoulder. “The cloth doesn’t bunch. It’s so smooth.”

She angled the stitch to the single dimly burning lamp in Orestilla’s room to show Safinia. “It’s nice,” Safinia mumbled.

“Alright, what’s wrong with you tonight?”

Her voice was warm, affectionate. A bubble of wanting and grief lodged in Safinia’s throat at the sound of it—so like their mother’s. Attice had been the first to recover when news came up the salt road about their parents’ deaths. She’d gentled Safinia out of bed in the mornings and handled schooling Anesia. In some ways, when Safinia thought about marriage, she thought about those years, sitting in the garden, drinking wine while Anesia slept, discussing how to raise her well. There were always small things they hadn’t anticipated: an infected tooth, a boy who made Anesia cry, the number of times a seven-year-old could announce in one day that they were bored. Their little sister needed them both—Safinia for her firmness, Attice for the opposite.

When Attice’s mind shattered, Safinia couldn’t muster herself for either. Anesia grew up practically feral, in the end. She was as good a kid as anyone would be under the circumstances, but she had no plan for her life, and Safinia hadn’t made one for her.

Attice’s shoulder jostled her. “It’s nothing,” Safinia said.

“Do you want a story?”

Safinia sat up. “Won’t it hurt your voice?” She missed Attice’s stories desperately. She’d asked just once in the last four years, but the hurt on Attice’s face when she found she couldn’t speak was awful.