“A noble bride receives a lot of gold jewelry. If she isn’t bountifully adorned, it’s shameful for her family.”

“You had no family in Taino country.”

An odd expression creased her mouth from a memory I could not share. “Let’s go. We’ll transfer the chest’s contents to these packs when we have a roof over our heads.”

The chest was indeed an unwieldy burden. The coarse rope chafed my fingers as we trudged through the busy streets of Adurnam. The sky was heavy with clouds and gritty with coal smoke from the afternoon cooking. Dreary colors and pinched faces made me feel we walked through a foreign land. To mark the festival of the god who ruled over war, shopkeepers had already adorned their doorways with a red wreath pierced with the short sword known as a gladius or with a wooden mask depicting a ram’s head with massive horns. The drinking would begin at sunset, and tomorrow morning there would be a procession through the streets.

We headed east toward the new districts along Enterprise Road. But our steps strayed toward the hills where the ancient Kena’ani settlement had risen long ago and where sanctuaries sacred to Melqart, Tanit, and Ba’al still stood. By unspoken agreement, Bee and I took a roundabout way that led us to the house where we had grown up.

We halted on the edge of Falle Square at dusk. The small four-story town house was shuttered, its front gate padlocked. No thread of smoke rose from the chimney. No festival wreath marked the door, not that any manner of Roman adornment had ever hung there when we lived in the house. The mansa of Four Moons House had purchased the property from the Hassi Barahal clan after my aunt and uncle had fled Adurnam. He had meant to keep Bee and me prisoner there until he sorted out what to do with us, but we had escaped.

Rain spattered as the wind picked up. Bee and Rory waited in the back alley while I wrapped shadows around myself, climbed over the back gate, and scanned the yard with its laundry room, cistern, and outdoor hearth. The old carriage house had been empty for years, for we could not afford horses or carriage, but the new owners had stocked it with hay and bags of feed. Bee and I had long ago hidden a key beneath a pair of loose boards in the carriage house. It was still there, but when I brought it to the door, the locks had been changed.

I tucked up my skirts, shifted the basket to my back, and climbed the tree to the window of Uncle Jonatan’s study. A chain of magic still protected the window latch. The whisper of its cold magic woke my sword. I unsheathed my blade and severed the threads. Then I turned the latch and swung into a deserted room.