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“First you tell me,” Safinia said. “Have you seen Hersilia? Is it as we feared?”

“It is as you feared, yes. Hersilia is married to Romulus. I did not see the other wives of Rome, but I have it on good authority that they are there—though it still befuddles me, this slow plan. They have, what, six, seven kidnapped brides? They can’t whelp a new generation on six women who might all die in childbirth.” He paused, his lip curled with distaste. “Some are not yet old enough to bear children.”

“Scum,” Safinia said. Her veins were ice. To know this was shattering, but to hear it aloud was worse. “We need to do something.”

“What would you suggest?” Livy’s face, in contrast to her rising anger, was placid. “I didn’t do a full census, but I would hazard that we two are outnumbered in Rome. Have you gone looking for your proof yet? You may yet not need it—I’m hearing that feelings toward Romulus and his get are at an all-time negative. Numa may decide himself that war, and the recovery of his daughter, is the best option.”

“I’ve seen Numa. Spoken to him. He isn’t budging.” Safinia stopped pacing to gnaw on her thumbnail. “Tell me everything about what you saw.”

Rome was more than she had expected. According to Livy, they’d built an impressive palisade around the hills and positioned their gate between a cliffside and a swamp. To hear him tell it, they easily outmatched the cities nearby. Caenina, when Livy had passed through, was little more than sticks after Rome’s attack.

“Where is Hersilia?” she asked.

“She lives in Romulus’s hut.” He caught her surprise. “Oh yes. The Romans have built temples along their forum, and a Regia for all business of state, the storage of grain, records, that sort of thing. But Romulus lives as his people live.”

“It sounds as if you admire him.”

“But I do. How could I not? He’s done the impossible with his men, uniting them under a single banner. He could be like any bandit lord that drinks and whores for a few years and then is sliced up in the night by his own hungry wards, but instead he’s a king.” Livy paused. “And he keeps Hersilia well. If that is any comfort.”

It could never be any comfort. Safinia’s teeth tore the ragged skin against her nail; blood dripped from them. Hersilia’s skin, soft with perfumed oils, unblemished but for a small scar on her wrist—she’d told Safinia it was from trying to retrieve a toy she’d dropped over the hearth when she was young. Romulus knew these details now, too, shared with Safinia the knowledge of Hersilia’s breath close to the ear.

Or maybe not. It was hard to imagine him taking the time to notice. And the things Safinia had adored—would maybe have loved, if they had had more time—Hersilia’s smile and her two larger-than-average teeth, her quick, derisive laugh, and eyes that could not rest on any one object as she thought, bouncing around the room. He would not know these.

“How could this be happening?” Safinia asked. Her voice cracked. “I have nothing. No power to save her from Romulus. Barely the strength to save anyone else.”

“If I know Hersilia, she would be impatient with your wallowing,” Livy said. “I’m certain she is scheming even now to turn her marriage to some kind of advantage. We can do nothing until we’re caught up. Tell me what the mood has been in Cures.”

Only the aftermath of Mettius’s fight gave him any pause. The rest—anger on behalf of the Caeninenses refugees, the growing fear from the merchant class of women—seemed as he had expected. “I can’t believe you said those things to Romulus,” Livy said, shaking his head. “We’ve talked about what a mistake it is to insult a man in such a way.”

“Hardly insults,” Safinia said. She felt guilty still when she thought of Mettius’s face that night, the shock and quickly veiled pain of her attacking Romulus with those words. “It wouldn’t matter to me if they were true. I was angry. I wanted his attention.”

“Well, you always warned me you’re a menace when you’re drunk.”

“There’s more to what happened,” Safinia said. “Numa wanted to kill me for it.”

Livy shook his head. “I have advised him here and there for years and I’ve never known a less warlike man. His reputation, and his legacy, is pacifism.”

“He’s a liar.” Safinia began to pace. Livy’s eyes followed her, flicking across the garden from end to end. “The city is frothing for war, and he won’t give it. He told me himself he won’t risk offending Rome. He as much admitted what we expected—that he gave Hersilia to Rome.” Safinia turned to look at Livy. “I’m going in two nights to look for proof. It’ll be the last night of the Games—Numa will be busy with the king. We can do it together, now that you’re back.”

Livy eyed her, the look on his face beyond her interpretation. It didn’t bode well that he had to pause to think. “I might help you,” he said at last. “First, though, I need you to answer a question.”

“Anything.”

“What do you want to happen?” He gestured around. “All this, all the girls, Hersilia—what specifically do you want Numa to do?”

“What have I been saying to you?” Safinia cried. “This must be answered with war.”

“Then the crime Rome has committed is worth paying for in blood,” Livy said. “Their blood, and that of many of your neighbors and Quirites. You told me once how much you detested the feeling of killing, so you must feel very strongly about this.”

Safinia opened her mouth to reply—yes, of course this was worth blood. The only way to ensure a rapist never touched another victim was to kill him. But she caught the look in Livy’s eye and understood: He wanted her to consider before she spoke. She remembered asking her mother about battle once. She was confused when Calliste returned home with a bad injury, a sword-swipe deep in her leg. Shouldn’t she have been in the back, with her advisors? I never ask my men to do what I’m not willing to do myself, she’d said.

Vomit crawled up Safinia’s throat even now as she thought of the men she’d killed for Attice. She would trade them for her sister a hundred times over. But multiply that feeling by a hundred, by all the people she would kill and see killed next to her, if she went to war. Bodies, seeping blood and the last of their life into the soil, everywhere. Safinia’s eyes fluttered.

“I know that Numa gave her to Romulus,” she said. “But I will never accept that as fair trade for anything. Not for a hundred lives. Not for a city. It doesn’t deserve to stand, if it stands on rape.”

“You will remember that I am not a military man,” Livy said, his voice quiet. “I admire the passion of those who are, and often wonder what would ignite that passion in me. I think that I would die for my city, my eternal home, but there hasn’t been cause to in my lifetime.”

“You wouldn’t kill a man who wronged your wife?”