“Attia, look,” Rory said. Her little face peered over the marble railing of the balcony. “It’s like the mountain is breathing.”
Cloudy black exhalations surrounded the entire summit of Vesuvius. The edges of the clouds turned red in the setting sun, as though tinged with fire. A layer of gray-and-white ash coated the roofs of the houses and shops at the base of the mountain.
“We should go back inside, Rory.” Attia gently ushered her back into the room and closed the shutters.
Rory didn’t argue. It was nearly dark anyway and time for her supper. Ever since Attia had started letting her play in the evenings, Rory had been eating more and more. She’d already gained a few pounds, and her skin no longer looked like it was hanging on bone. Even if her family hadn’t yet noticed the new glow to her skin, it was only a matter of time before someone saw that Rory was getting stronger. Let them see, Attia thought. She wasn’t going to starve a child. Not for the Romans, and certainly not to keep their secrets.
Attia left Rory to her little games while she went downstairs to pick up their supper from the kitchens. But her steps slowed on the way back when she found Lucius sitting on the stairs that led to the upper rooms.
His body was stretched across the bottommost step, his left foot tapping a soft beat against the floor. The cup of wine in his hand was nearly empty, but he stared into it as though there was a message to be read there. He looked like he hadn’t slept in weeks.
“Have you heard?” he said, still staring into his cup. “Tycho Flavius is coming.”
Flavius. The name rang in Attia’s ears.
“Two weeks, the messengers say. Maybe my mother has the right idea—maybe we should all just drink ourselves into oblivion so that we can stomach the fool’s presence.” He chuckled to himself, threw his head back, and drained the cup.
It was obvious that Lucius was less than pleased by this information, but Attia was more concerned about whether or not Tycho would bring his father with him. Just the thought of having both Timeus and the Legatus Crassus in this house, close enough for Attia to drive her blade into their chests …
“Is he coming alone?” she asked, trying to sound as calm as possible.
Lucius turned to her with a thoughtful frown. “He may bring soldiers with him, if he’s cautious. But he doesn’t know that I know.”
It was Attia’s turn to frown. She had no idea what Lucius was talking about. She watched him reach into his pocket and hold up a gold coin between his fingers.
“Did you know,” he said, eyes intent on the coin, “that after the House of Flavius rose to power, they restandardized the Republic’s currency? They didn’t want there to be any question that Vespasian was the rightful Princeps. Now all coins are engraved with Vespasian’s profile on one side, and an inscription that reads ‘Vespasianus Augustus, Noble Father of the Roman People’ on the other.” Lucius toyed with the gold coin in his fingers before reaching out his hand and offering it to Attia.
She took it hesitantly. The coin was almost solid gold—shinier and heavier than the Republic’s currency. It bore no profile, no long inscription. There was only the image of a wolf’s head on both sides, along with a single word. “Flavius,” she read.
“After I executed that bandit, this coin fell out of his pocket. I hid it before the guards or the soldiers could see. The guards are my uncle’s men, and the soldiers are loyal only to the Princeps. I didn’t know who I could trust.”
“Do you really think a Flavian ordered the attack on the camp?”
Lucius nodded at the coin in Attia’s hand. “You can’t trust a Flavian.” His words were an eerie echo of Valeria’s.
Attia handed the coin back to him. “Have you told Timeus?” she asked, even though it was obvious that Lucius hadn’t told anyone besides her.
“This coin is the only proof I have. I don’t even know what the motive would have been for such an attack. To prevent us from reaching Pompeii? To kill us outright? I can’t imagine they were looking for anything.” Lucius shook his head. “Besides, my uncle is ambitious. Even if he knew, he’s dependent on Titus for political favor. He can’t accuse the family of treachery. Then there’s that wager he’s made with Tycho—my uncle will win a seat on the Senate if Xanthus wins the match against Tycho’s new gladiator. So for now, he just wants to keep all the right people happy.” His face hardened, and he looked up at Attia. “Especially his champion. You are the prize Xanthus gets for being a skilled murderer. I take a single, miserable life, and now I can barely sleep at night. Xanthus takes dozens, hundreds of lives, and everyone loves him for it. He must enjoy it.”
“If you believe that,” Attia said, “then you don’t know him at all.”
Lucius scoffed. “You told me once that nothing matters but the present. Not redemption or the afterlife or the gods. Only what we do here and now. Xanthus is what my uncle has made him. We all are. And nothing in this life or the next will ever account for that.”
Attia bit her lip to hold back the words that wanted to spring out of her mouth—that there would be an accounting. That Rome would pay dearly for its sins. Maybe not tomorrow or the day after, but someday their precious Republic would come to ruin, and it wouldn’t be the work of the gods or fate. A living, breathing, suffering soul would make Timeus and his ilk suffer as they’d made so many others suffer. And it would be called justice.
With the cup cradled lightly in his hand, Lucius stood and tucked the coin back into his pocket. “I see it now,” he said. “Xanthus is a monster, just like the rest of them. And I am so sorry that you were given to him, Attia. I am so terribly sorry.”
Attia’s heart tightened at the utter sincerity in Lucius’s voice. Gods, he truly believed what he was saying. She gripped the basket of food in her hand and hurried back to Rory’s room.
She found the child drawing in the ash by the fireplace. Rory’s tiny fingers were wrapped around a long, narrow stylus. Her tongue stuck out from between her lips in concentration. Attia decided she would have to steal some real papyrus from Timeus’s study for the girl to draw on.
Rory looked up as Attia put the food on the table. “I’m practicing birds,” she said.
“What kind of birds?’
“All of them. But mostly the big ones.”
Attia sat beside her and watched as Rory took great care in shaping a wing, then a beak. She had surprising control for a child so young.
“What kind is that?” Attia asked.
“A seagull,” Rory said. She pointed at another drawing. “And that’s a vulture. It’s an ugly one.”
Attia laughed and noticed a familiar-looking shape, drawn larger than the rest. “And what is that one?”