Regina ignored her. She stepped forward gingerly. The soil and the grass were cool under her bare feet. Rubble, broken blocks of stone from the walls, cluttered the floor under the thin covering of soil, but she could see them easily, and if she avoided them she was surely in no danger. She came to a patch of daisies, buttercups, and bluebells. She crouched down in the soil, careless of how her knees were getting dirty, and began to pick at the little flowers. She had a vague notion of making a daisy chain for her mother; perhaps it would cheer her up when she eventually awoke.

But when she dug her fingers into the thin layer of earth, she quickly came to hard, textured stone beneath. It must be the floor of the bathhouse. She put her flowers aside and scraped away the soil with her hands. She exposed little tiles, bright colors—a man’s face, picked out in bits of stone. She knew what this was; there was another in the living room. It was a mosaic, and these bits of stone, brick red and creamy white and yellow-gold and gray, were tesserae. She kept scraping, shuffling back on her knees, until she had exposed more of the picture. A young man rode a running horse—no, it was flying, for it had wings—and he chased a beast, a monster with the body of a big cat and the head of a goat. Eager to see more, she scraped at more of the soil. Some of the picture was damaged, with the little tiles missing or broken, but—

“I thought I’d find you here. The one place you aren’t meant to be.” The deep voice made her jump. Aetius had come into the bathhouse through a rent in the ruined wall at the back. He stood over her, hands on hips. He wore a grimy tunic; perhaps he had been riding.

Cartumandua said, “Oh, sir, thank the gods. Get her out of there. She won’t listen to me.”

He waved a hand, and she fell silent. “You’ll be in no trouble, Cartumandua. I’ll be responsible.” He knelt down beside Regina and she peered into his face; to her relief she saw he wasn’t being too stern. “What are you doing, child?”

“Grandfather! Look what I found! It’s a picture. It was here all the time, under the soil.”

“Yes, it was there all the time.” He pointed to the young man in the picture. “Do you know who this is?”

“No . . .”

“He’s called Bellerophon. He is riding Pegasus, the winged horse, and he is battling the Chimaera.”

“Is there more of it? Will you help me uncover it?”