“Interesting,” Nessus gulped. The girl stared up at him, expectant, and he looked at her palm again, hoping it had been a trick of the light. Maybe a shadow. But no, there it was: not a shadow but blood.

You’re seeing things, he told himself. You’re seeing things.

“What?” the child said, curious.

He swallowed a sudden burst of nervous laughter. Wasn’t an astrologer supposed to see things when he looked at the stars, or into a palm?

But he never had before, not once since he’d gotten started in this business. Astrology wasn’t about truth, after all—it was about pleasing the clients. Telling pregnant women that their stars foretold healthy sons; telling legionaries their futures held medals and glory. What successful astrologer told anybody there was enough blood in their hand to soak all Rome?

I could have run a wine shop. The sun was hot overhead, but Nessus felt chill sweat start to creep down his neck. I could have become a trader. But no, I had to become an astrologer. Reading stars, reading palms when business gets slow, oh, why didn’t I just open a wine shop? The only blood anybody saw in a wine shop came from drunks giving each other a swollen nose.

And the morning had started with such promise. Nessus had come early to the Forum Romanum, staking himself a place on the shady side where the afternoon sun wouldn’t beat down on his head like Vulcan’s hammer, and laid out his little display of star charts on threadbare silk. By noon he’d been commissioned for three horoscopes (payment on delivery), read the palm of a grain merchant and spoke mysteriously of fat profits coming on the next harvest; squinted at the hand of a giddy young woman and whispered of a rich husband. Nessus had just been mopping his already balding forehead on his sleeve and contemplating a jug of wine at the nearest tavern when four little girls arrayed themselves expectantly before him.

“We want you to read our futures,” the tallest had announced, and the rest promptly collapsed into giggles.

“There’s no time,” their nursemaid scolded, but Nessus looked them over with a practiced eye. Patrician girls, or he’d eat his straw sun hat: silk dresses, tooled leather sandals, veils over their hair to shield their skin. And patrician girls, even little ones like these, had coins to spend.

“Such futures ahead of you!” he intoned mysteriously. “Your stars sing to me of fame and fortune, beauty and love . . . two sesterces apiece, and cheap at the price. Which of you first?”

“Me, me!” Four hands presented themselves, variously grubby.

“No, me first, I’m the oldest! I’m Cornelia Prima, and that’s my sister, she’s Cornelia Secunda, and that’s Cornelia Tertia and Cornelia Quarta, they’re our cousins—”