“It was a beautiful party,” Cornelia said. “She had a lovely time.” Little Flavia had been the center of a heap of gifts; riding her proud great-grandfather’s shoulders, scrambling on and off various laps, harnessing Diana with a ribbon and driving her around the garden. Lollia had been unable to go; Fabius wanted her at an Imperial banquet. “She was too busy to miss you, Lollia.”

“Not much comfort,” Lollia said, as Flavia grabbed her mother and her aunt by the hands and tugged them through the tiled atrium. “I should have been there.”

“You didn’t feel much guilt missing her first three birthdays! First you were in Baiae visiting a new summer villa, then you were on a pleasure boat somewhere off Crete with a poet, and after that—”

Lollia made a face. “Seems like a lifetime ago.”

“Can’t you bring Flavia back to live with you again?” Cornelia ventured. “You could keep her well away from Fabius.”

“I don’t dare. He’s suspicious of anything connected with Vespasian these days, and Flavia is Vespasian’s granddaughter. Not that he’s ever set eyes on her,” Lollia added. “I don’t think I ever met Vespasian myself above twice in my life. I remember him congratulating Titus and me at our wedding in the thickest provincial accent you ever heard. A nice man. He and my grandfather got along like anything—both shrewd traders, you know.”

“You think Fabius would consider Flavia a threat?” Cornelia blinked. “A little girl—”

“How do I know what he’d think?” Lollia’s tone was tight. “Titus has another daughter, from his second marriage, and her family’s taking no chances with her safety. Just whisked her off to the country in hiding the moment Vespasian started making trouble for Vitellius. A little girl even younger than Flavia, and someone thought she might be a threat!”

“Come see the fish!” Flavia crowed, dragging them to the little private garden with its splashing fountain that led off from her pink-frilled bedchamber. “Great-grandfather put gold rings on them!” She sat Lollia and Cornelia down on the fountain’s edge, breathlessly telling them about the king fish and the queen fish and all the princess fish in the fountain, her fair curls bouncing on her shoulders and her doting great-grandfather’s pearls gleaming around her neck.

“Goodness,” Cornelia said. “Do fish really have such dramatic lives?”

“They do, they do, an’ if you take off your sandals they’ll nibble your toes!”

“That sounds too good to pass up.” Lollia unlaced her silver sandals and put her feet in the fountain next to Flavia’s little plump toes. “Come on, Cornelia! Don’t be a prig.”

But Cornelia was already unlacing her sandals. Long iridescent fish slid languidly around her ankles, gold rings gleaming through their fins. “Did your grandfather really put those rings on them, just for Flavia?”