Aurelia and I were careening toward an impasse. For her to succeed in what she wanted most, I would almost certainly have to fail.

Crispus’s home was on the outskirts of the city, on a gently sloping hill with vineyards as far as the eye could see. “They’re not all ours,” he explained when he caught both Aurelia and I gaping at them. “There are many people in Rome far wealthier than us.”

“How many people?” Aurelia quipped. “Three?”

Once we entered his home, I doubted it was even that many. The exterior wasn’t so grand — on either side of the entrance were ordinary shops, selling food and wine produced here on this land. The inside, however, was anything but ordinary.

The wide entry was tiled with precious jewels similar to those I had once mined. For all I knew, my hands had pulled them from the earth. They created a colorful mosaic pattern of a griffin. I saw it and immediately thought of Caela, wondering if she had survived the injury to her side. I missed her and wondered whether I’d ever see her again. Beside me, Aurelia seemed to sense what I was feeling. She took my hand and gave it a squeeze. I released it as quickly as she had taken mine. It still bothered me to realize only one of us was going to succeed in our bargain, and that it probably wasn’t me.

Looking up, large paintings hung on either side of the entry corridor. One was of Senator Valerius, and the second one Crispus said was of his grandfather, who had died only a few years earlier.

“He was a great man.” Crispus turned to me. “Did you ever know your grandfather?”

“I never even knew my father,” I said. “He died when I was very young.” Though he shouldn’t have. Why didn’t he get inside during the thunderstorm, like any reasonable person would?

It was Crispus’s turn to go silent. “Oh,” he finally said. “I’m sorry, Nic.”

I didn’t answer. Not because I was angry, but because I was very aware of Aurelia beside me, who had even less of a claim to family than I did. Crispus never bothered to ask about her. I figured she preferred it that way.

By then, we walked into a large atrium where moonlight poured through an open roof. It reflected down on the surface of a small and shallow pool with another mosaic beneath it, depicting the same griffin as I had seen at the entrance. Bright flowers grew around the pool and their scent carried on the breeze. The full moon and large candles added enough light that I saw the dark orange paint on the walls, elaborate fresco paintings of nature and beautiful women and illustrations of stories that I was sure every Roman over the age of three would understand. Impressive as they were, to me, they were only random pictures.

“This is really where you live?” I asked. “It’s not another temple?”

“It’s home.” Crispus pointed to rooms at the sides of the atrium. “These are our bedrooms. Behind them are rooms where my mother does her weaving, and where the work is assigned to our slaves.”

His eyes suddenly darted across to me but I tried to ignore that. It was no surprise that his wealthy family would have slaves, but I still felt a pinch to hear it. I refused to think of myself that way anymore, and yet it was also painfully clear that I did not belong in Crispus’s world either.

To ease the tension, Aurelia pointed ahead to a room with a large desk I could see from here. “What’s in there?”

Again, he faced me to answer her question. “The tablinum, where my father works when he’s home. When he comes, he will talk to you in there.” Then for the first time, he really seemed to see Aurelia. “We have private baths, here in the home. I can assign a woman to attend to you there.”

Aurelia shook her head. “I’ll stay with Nic.”

“You should go to the baths,” I said.

She frowned at me, and I knew she had misunderstood. I wasn’t implying that she smelled bad, or, at least, no worse than me. I only meant that I didn’t expect any trouble from Senator Valerius. Just the opposite in fact. Though I wasn’t sure exactly what he wanted from me, I knew he would help with my problem. Valerius had no love for Radulf either.

But Aurelia wouldn’t budge. “I’ll stay with Nic.”

Crispus sighed, took the bulky togas from us, and led us into his father’s office. He gave us seats, then said he would call for someone to bring us more food, and left.

Aurelia immediately leaned toward me. “I don’t like it here. I think we should leave.”

“Why? Do you object to being somewhere safe? Somewhere I’m going to be fed for a second time in the same evening?”

“You only think about food,” she said.

“And you only think about running,” I replied. “All I’m asking for is enough time to hear what Valerius has to say. If we don’t like it, then we leave. No problem.”

We fell silent when a servant entered from a second door behind the senator’s desk. He set a tray on the desk filled with more bread and cheese and a soft white fruit that tasted as sweet as the strawberries had been.

“It’s a pear.” Aurelia took a bite, and then handed it to me. “Honestly, it’s like your whole life has been lived in a cave.”

“It was,” I answered with my mouth already full.

I couldn’t eat everything fast enough, and by the time the tray was empty, my stomach ached with satisfaction. But although I had to slouch in my chair and try not to move, I wasn’t about to complain. If a second tray were brought in, I’d find a way to eat everything on it too.

Aurelia turned to me and lowered her voice. “Valerius will ask about the bulla. You know that, right?”

My fingers were already tracing the curve where it attached to the strap. “Yes.”

“What will you tell him?”

“Nothing, until he tells me something about Livia.”

“She’s a lost slave girl. Valerius won’t care about her.”

“But I do!” I sat up straight and stared at Aurelia. “And if he wants my help, then he needs to help me first.”

“I’m helping you, Nic. Maybe not for reasons you like, but I am helping you.” Then Aurelia shrugged. “Wherever my family is, I wish they cared as much about finding me as you care about your sister.”

“Can I see your crepundia?” I asked.

She paused a moment before lifting it over her head and handing it to me. The miniatures were far more intricate than I had realized at first. Someone had put a great deal of work into this, and unfortunately, it was probably valued more than the daughter.

I opened the small satchel in the center of the crepundia and saw inside it poor man’s gems. They were so close to the real thing that most people wouldn’t know the difference. However, my eye was practiced from the mines. Sal wouldn’t have considered these fakes worth our time.

Realizing I knew the difference, Aurelia snatched the crepundia from my grip. “I sold the originals a long time ago. One day, I’ll get them back again.”

“Why is it so important to find this family who already exposed you?” I asked. “Why do you think they’ll take you back now?”

Staring at the crepundia, she said, “I think about them every day. Whether my mother wanted to keep me, and what might have gone wrong for my father to have rejected me so harshly. I hope it’s a reason that he regrets now. Maybe there was something sad associated with my birth and he couldn’t deal with it then. Maybe our family was having hard times and he had no choice.”

“If money is the only reason they’d accept you, then you shouldn’t go back to them,” I said.

Tears welled in her eyes and she put the crepundia back around her neck. “You don’t understand.”