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She crawled until she could get on her feet. Her head pounded, and her stomach was a gaping, empty maw, but eventually she was able to limp back the way she had come without shaking. She had no idea if it was the right way, only that if she were Hersilia, she would be running toward Romulus, and that way would be deeper in.

Safinia was streaked with blood, her hair matted, her hands bruised, the nails ripped off or split and oozing. She flexed them as she moved, trying to limber her stiff fingers. The delirium of being free, her escape so tenuously possible, threatened to overwhelm her.

She felt more like an injured roe deer than a woman. Just as well. Rome was a dangerous place to be a woman.

It was impossible to tell how late it was. The hallway flickered with scant torchlight. Safinia felt like she walked through a dream, not a place. She reached the man she’d killed and bent down to shut his eyes, fighting a wave of dizziness. Then she kept moving, watching her feet when the shifting light got to be too much for her spinning head. She turned a corner and found a mosaic under her hand, sharp and cool. She snuck glances at it as she walked. Something about it was familiar to her.

A scene wound through the hallway. Mountains, a river, a shepherd, two squalling boys. A few huts that must have represented Rome’s first buildings. Then it stopped. There were many colored tiles and a bucket with spackle and tools on the floor. The image wasn’t finished. Safinia looked at the bare limestone and felt like she knew what the final scene should be. But it wouldn’t come to her.

She slumped against the wall. Every moment she wasn’t moving felt wasted—she couldn’t get her strength back without food and water, or something to bind her bruised knuckles. But the hallway ahead was an open, dark throat. Had she chosen the wrong way? Was she traveling deeper into the guts of the Regia?

Safinia set her jaw and forged on ahead, trying to keep her steps soft, her breath quiet. She traced her hand against the wall to help her senses as she squinted into the black: cool, rough limestone, then, finally, the wood of a door. Safinia pressed her ear against it, but it gave her nothing. Her palms picked up splinters as she ran them over the frame, looking for a latch or a keyhole.

She tried shoving, throwing her shoulder into the door, and it swung open easily. Safinia stumbled, feeling foolish as her eyes adjusted to lamplight.

She was in a kitchen. She made a small sound of relief, stumbling to yank a bundle of greens from where they were hung to dry. She pried at the lid of an amphora and found wine; it eased the bitterness of the leafy greens she chewed, sliding warm down her throat. She gulped, then her eyes lit on a half loaf of bread. It was nearly as hard as stone; Safinia hit it against the wall and dunked pieces of it in the wine to soften them. She ate around green spots, not caring if she got sick.

The hearth glowed dim and red at the center of the kitchen. It reminded her of the hut outside of Crustumerium, where Livy had lain next to her in the dirt, watching embers travel over the ceiling.

“What am I meant to do?” she whispered. Livy would know. He would reassure her that this was a passing gambit—that the Sabine were strong, the finest people in history, and Rome a faded detail in the story of her people. Then he would insult her, and it would make her so mad she would forget the aches in her body.

“‘By all means, stay on the floor,’” she mumbled. “‘I’m sure your sisters grow safer for every moment you stuff yourself full of moldy bread. But then, I’m only a decorated scholar.’”

It was like he was there with her.

“Fuck off,” Safinia said. She closed her eyes while she chewed. “They’re in Cures, at least. They’ll be sensible enough not to come.”

“‘Yes, because the Safinius clan is well-known for their common sense.’” She could almost hear him in her own voice. She could hear him. “‘Say, how did my ring serve you? It was a gamble, marking you as I did, but I suppose some weaker part of me wants to see you through this.’”

“What?” Safinia’s eyes flew open. She got to her feet, looking at each shadowy corner. The room was empty.

She held Livy’s ring in her hand, comforted, as always, by its heft and weight. Why had she imagined he would say that? What was it that he’d said when he insisted she not sell it—that it might help her, someday? Cold trickled down Safinia’s spine. Romulus had changed his mind about killing her after seeing it. She closed her eyes again, standing very still. She saw in her mind’s eye the same design, cruder, slid onto a slim, soft finger. Hersilia’s ring.

Romulus had connected the two pieces, that was all. The ring reminded him that she was important to Hersilia. Perhaps he meant to leverage Safinia to keep his wife in check. Yes, that had to be it. Safinia’s heart pounded in her ears. No, she thought. No, there’s more here. Something Livy hasn’t told me.

She put down the stale bread. She’d eaten enough to get her energy back. In fact, she suddenly felt quite strong. The muffled air in the kitchen stirred like someone had just left the room.

The door swung open. Safinia dropped into a fighting stance, holding her bloodied knife in front of her. The youth who’d come in dropped the fruit and grains in his arms and yelped.

He was slight, not more than fourteen or fifteen. His tunic and pants were as rough as Safinia’s. She stepped forward and he scrambled back, unwittingly letting her get closer to the door. Movement broke his shock. He babbled in Latin, too quickly and too thickly accented for her to understand.

“Hush! Do you speak Sabellic? Etruscan?” He nodded, and she lowered her knife a fraction. “Are you Roman?”

The boy swallowed and shook his head so hard it looked like it would come off. “Slave,” he croaked in Etruscan. He pulled his arms around his shoulders, a protective gesture she’d seen Attice do more than once. Safinia let her knife fall to the ground, where it clattered. She couldn’t bring herself to hurt him, wherever his loyalties lay.

“I need a sharper knife,” she said flatly. “And to know the way out.”

He hesitated. For a moment, Safinia wanted to tell him to follow her. There was a bruise blossoming around his thin wrist. She doubted he worked only in the kitchens. The boy produced a long carving knife and handed it to Safinia. She tested it on the callus under her thumb; it was barely sharper than the knife she was leaving behind. Barely.

“Are you a goddess?” the boy asked in a whisper. His fear seemed to have given way to awe. If she saw hope cross his face, it would break her.

She could do nothing for this slave. She could do nothing for him because he would slow her down, and if she was slow to escape, slow to reach Cures again, her sisters would suffer. If she was slow to alert King Tatius, muster the Sabine forces, her nation would suffer. She had to trade his safety for the safety of the rest. That was what Hersilia said was worth it. A few for a legacy. Now, whatever became of her family, they were surviving on this boy’s back.

“I’m not,” Safinia said. She took a deep breath. “Point me to the exit.”

V

The boy’s directions took her to a door that opened onto a wide, columned hall. Just as swiftly as she entered it, Safinia muffled a yelp and jumped behind one of the columns—three men were passing through. She circled the column slowly as they passed her, praying they wouldn’t notice her shadow disturbing the uniform pattern of the hall. It opened to the air—to a sky emblazoned with a low, red sun.