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It was all Safinia could do not to run toward it. She slipped from column to column, and stilled when she reached the threshold. Something in the sky caught her eye.

A black cloud formed over the Tiber, pressing together, thrown this way and that by the wind. It undulated, spread apart, swooped together, a great formless beast taking shape. It’s not a cloud, Safinia thought, awe-stricken as the black thing dissolved into a thousand tiny pinpricks, then came back together, forming a tornado, a veil, a mountain. Starlings. She had no idea such a small thing could unfurl like a nightmare over Rome.

They spiraled away to a point beyond the Regia. Safinia closed her eyes. She didn’t want to know what Timaeus would make of this omen.

It was several breaths before she found the courage to dash down the Regia’s steps and between buildings. The hill was dotted with dwellings and community buildings, overlooking a forum and the Circus Maximus, where crowds now undulated like the starlings. Only the Regia was stone; the rest were made as Safinia’s home was, of packed mud.

Once she was among them she slowed, catching her breath. The spaces between buildings weren’t paved; she could see by the unbent grass that she’d found a secluded path.

What next? She still felt exposed—the buildings were much farther apart than in Cures. The Consualia hadn’t begun yet. She could still try to . . . to do what, exactly? She could hardly find the king and tug his sleeve.

A cut-off shriek disturbed Safinia from her thoughts. She stilled, listening.

“—don’t mean any harm,” a woman said. “I just thought I’d have a wander!”

The man’s reply was lost to a change in the wind. Safinia peered around her building. A lone Roman gripped the arms of a small woman. Likely he was a guard, or some lesser-rank soldier, delighted that he wouldn’t miss the chance to seize his bride tonight after all.

“Let go of me!” the woman yelled. She turned her head, and Safinia stifled a gasp. It was Orestilla.

Did she have something to throw? The knife she’d stolen from the kitchen was poorly balanced. She gripped the flat of the blade near where it met the handle, closing her eyes to picture it severing the skin of a roe deer’s neck, then opened her eyes and threw—for a horrible moment she thought she’d missed; then the man howled, releasing Orestilla to grab for his ankle. The knife had struck low on his shin.

She didn’t wait for him to assess the wound; it was probably only surface. Safinia hurled herself from her hiding place and threw her whole weight on him. Unbalanced as he was, they tumbled to the dusty, packed ground outside the Regia.

“Safinia?!” Orestilla gasped. She fumbled with something around her thigh—throwing knives that she’d bartered for after Safinia complimented her aim—and held one in a tight fist.

Safinia grabbed a handful of dust and tried to smear it in the Roman’s eyes, trying to keep him too disoriented to fight well. She needn’t have worried too much—this close, she could smell that he was drunk. Orestilla brought her fist down on his chest, letting out a high, keening sound at the feeling of her knife cutting flesh. Safinia pushed her hand away and took the narrow blade, yanking it out of his body and swiftly cutting the man’s throat.

A hot, heavy spray of blood caught her in the face. Then he was dead.

Safinia recovered first. “Help me drag him.”

Orestilla nodded; they grabbed him by the ankles and yanked him back to Safinia’s hiding place. She breathed a sigh of relief when they were out of that long highway that led from the Regia’s steps and down to the forum. When the man was stashed, Orestilla threw her arms around Safinia. Safinia clutched her back, her heart beating like a rabbit’s.

“What are you doing here alone?” Safinia asked.

Orestilla wiped tears away with the back of her hand. “Looking for Hersilia. And you, if I was lucky. Where have you been? And what’s happened to you? Your sisters are out of their minds with worry.” She stepped back and looked Safinia up and down, though she did not surrender her loose embrace. “They think you were kidnapped. I—I thought after what I said, that you’d decided to see her without me.”

There was a note of insecurity in her voice. Safinia had to remind herself of the days before Numa abducted her—it seemed impossible that she’d been worried about choosing between sisters, as if the love they both offered was honest. Once this was done, she would reassure Orestilla as much as she liked, beg forgiveness for her indecision. For now . . .

“Every woman here tonight is in danger,” Safinia said. “I need your help.”

“Of course,” Orestilla answered automatically. “What is going on? You’re a mess. What happened to your wrists?”

“They were bound. We don’t have much time. Where is Mettius?”

“Last I saw, heading for the horse show. Safinia?”

Safinia knelt at the body of the Roman guard, realizing with a sick jolt that she’d barely felt the impact of killing him. “This one’s small enough,” she muttered. “I can take his tunic at least and try to blend in.” A shortened spear was strapped to his back; she stole both. The shirt stank with sweat. “How bloody is my face?”

“It’s not clean.” Orestilla tore a strip from the hem of her chiton and used it to wipe some of the blood from Safinia’s cheek. Then she reached her shaking hands up to Safinia’s hair, taking over unbraiding it to complete her disguise. “Please tell me what’s going on. Or what I can do to help you.”

“It wasn’t Numa that betrayed Cures,” Safinia said. Orestilla’s hand stilled. “It was Hersilia. She orchestrated the kidnappings. She thinks that—that falling to Rome is inevitable, so why not find positions of some power. I don’t know.”

“That can’t be true.”

“Look at me, Ores!” Safinia grabbed her hand. She could see how much Orestilla wanted to flinch, but she held steadfast, looked back with her jaw set. “Your father dragged me to Rome. Hersilia kept me locked up. I don’t have time to make you believe me.”

“I believe you,” Orestilla said in a hushed voice.