“I don’t know.” Cornelia gave a last pat to Lollia’s piled hair, and retreated back to her couch. “She’s still very withdrawn—you know, after what happened at Brixellum.”

“Did anything happen to her at Brixellum?” Lollia sounded tart. “She didn’t seem all that terribly scarred to me, when she came back. She still doesn’t. ‘Oh, poor me, I had to watch a battle.’ Just like that incident with Emperor Nero, whatever it was—a convenient excuse to duck everything she doesn’t want to do.”

Cornelia shifted uncomfortably. It didn’t matter if she privately agreed—she still always defended her sister. “You shouldn’t say that, Lollia.”

“Isn’t it true?”

“Of course not.” Cornelia thought of Gaius’s last dinner party, the most recent set of races at the Circus Maximus, Lollia’s last betrothal feast—Marcella had ducked them all. “I can’t face it,” she said, her eyelids trembling, and everyone was quick to urge her to lie down and rest. Only whenever Cornelia ventured up to her little study, she didn’t appear to be resting . . . more like sitting at her desk with a pen in her hand and a gleam in her eyes. “Won’t you tell me about Brixellum?” Cornelia said. “I’d understand, you know—I’m not Tullia.”

“What’s to tell?” Marcella shrugged—a hard shrug, Cornelia thought. “Another emperor died. We’re getting rather a lot of that, this year.”

“I wouldn’t have minded seeing Otho die.” Savage satisfaction coiled in Cornelia’s stomach. “I wish I’d been with you at Brixellum. So I could have spit on his corpse.”

“I don’t think you would have.” Marcella sounded thoughtful. “He died quite heroically, you know.”

“My husband died heroically too!”

Marcella’s thoughtfulness had vanished in a smooth blink. “Of course he did.”

Cornelia looked at her sister’s impassive face. “. . . Should I leave you alone?”

“I’m very tired,” Marcella said at once. “Ever since Brixellum . . .”

“Ever since Brixellum, you’ve been shutting me out!” Cornelia snapped, and stamped off.

Lollia was surveying herself in the mirror, still chattering gloomily. “Rubies,” she said to her maid. “I’d better remind Fabius exactly how rich I am. It’s all he’s interested in, after all.” She held out both arms for the ruby cuffs to be shackled about her wrists and tipped her head back for the heavy shoulder-sweeping earrings.

“So, this new husband of yours—does he suit you?” Cornelia dragged her thoughts away from her sister, back to the niceties. For months she’d been so consumed by grief and then by vengeance that she’d had no time for polite conversation—and of course, she had hardly been talking to Lollia anyway. But now all could be forgiven. “Commander Fabius Valens,” Cornelia smiled. “Your grandfather certainly didn’t waste any time catching him for you.”