“For what?” she asked.
“For the shoes,” I said, struggling in my foggy state to find the right Latin words. “Back when we were in Gaul.”
Cai snorted. “You have more than shoes to thank her for.”
I looked at him blankly.
He nodded at my former cage-mate. “She’s the one who found you and brought you here.”
“I didn’t have much choice,” Kassandra said. “You were in no condition to travel on your own. As it was, we were barely able to carry you this far.”
I looked back and forth between them, hopelessly muddled. “Where am I? The House of Venus? What is that?”
“Most people call it a house of whores,” Kassandra said with a dry smile. “That is why Caius Varro hurries to spirit you away from this place. Before your bright rising star is tarnished by association.”
The two of them might as well have been speaking in Greek. “I don’t understand,” I said.
“You attended a party last night at a house on the Caelian Hill, didn’t you?” Kassandra asked.
I nodded and put a hand to my forehead, which throbbed mercilessly.
“I was there too.” When I looked at her, she shrugged. “They hired some of the girls from this house to serve as hostesses for the revels. We left with our escort when things began to get out of hand—as they often do at those sorts of affairs—and that’s when we found you, lying on the side of the road at the bottom of the hill. You were insensible. Babbling.” She offered a sympathetic smile. “But I recognized you, and we brought you here. I sent word to Caius so that he might come and take you back to the place where you belong.”
I wasn’t sure where that was anymore. I wasn’t sure of anything.
“How do you two even know each other?” I asked.
“Kass has been a friend to me since she was sold to this place,” Cai said.
Oh, I thought. Of course. A friend. I felt my cheeks redden.
She laughed, shaking her head. “What he means is that this place entertains its fair share of politicians and patricians. So I occasionally find myself in possession of information that could prove useful to a certain consul of the Republic. I’m really Caesar’s friend, if you want to think of it that way.” She put a hand on my arm. “But I trust the Decurion. And you should too.”
Cai reached out and took my other arm. “We should go now. We have to get you back to the Achillea town house.”
“Why?” I asked. “So they can flog the skin from my bones? I didn’t have leave to go to those revels. None of us did. Sorch—I mean, the Lanista—is going to be furious,” I said. “I’ll be very surprised if she doesn’t just send me packing back to the ludus to muck out horse stalls until I’m too old to throw a spear.”
“Us?” Cai asked.
“I went with a few of the other girls. It was Nyx’s idea.” Thinking back on the beginning of the evening—which was substantially clearer in my memory than the rest—I realized I hadn’t actually seen Nyx drink from the wineskin. Or Lydia, for that matter. Only Elka and me. “She’s the one who put mandrake in my wine.”
“What?” He backed off a step, frowning. “She drugged you? Tell me what happened.”
I did—at least I tried to—in halting, disjointed phrases, piecing together the events of the night leading up to the brutal entertainment and the death of the gladiator. Then I drifted into silence, drawing a hazy blank on what had happened next.
“Why would one of your sisters from the ludus do such a thing?” Kassandra asked.
“Because Nyx wants Fallon off her game.” Cai looked at me. “You’re her only direct competition for Caesar’s Victory in the Triumphs.”
I barked a laugh. “Then she’s gone to a lot of trouble for nothing. Achillea told me yesterday that she’s withdrawing me from consideration.”
“What?” Cai was dubious. “Why would she do that? You’re the best she has.”
“She’s overreacting,” I said. “Someone’s been trying to frighten me. Nothing more than harmless pranks, but Achillea thinks they’re real threats.”
“What kind of pranks?”
“Trashing my room and ruining my things, leaving bloody feathers on my pillow. Yesterday there was a raven—”
Suddenly the brain-numbing fog vanished, as if blown away on a stiff breeze. The protection it had offered me from the horrific memories of that night vanished with it. The image of the raven statue in the foyer of the Domus Corvinus bloomed like a black flower in my mind, its wings spread wide, its cruel beak open in a frozen shriek. I remembered the silver feather in the dish of the scale. The dead gladiator on the altar in the catacombs . . .
“Fallon!” Cai reached out as I swayed on my feet.
“What is it?” Kassandra asked. “What’s wrong?”
The words came rushing out, breathless and frantic, as I told them about Aeddan and his fight with the gladiator Ajax. How he told me he’d been trying to find me ever since that night back home. I told them about running, hiding . . . and finding the vaulted underground chamber. My voice grated as I described the robed men in the masks with the scales.