Lollia had looked up with white all around her eyes, like a horse ready to bolt. “Let’s get the guards,” Diana had said. “We’ll go wait with Cornelia and Marcella—they’re farther up the hill from the fighting.”

But every guard Lollia had hired to protect her had fled.

Diana stuck to the back streets, scouting with watchful eyes. Women stood in doorways, hard-faced and wary, thrusting their children behind them. A tavern still stood open for business, drunken shouts rising from within. A row of vendor stalls—a few were open and Diana watched a housewife calmly feeling through a basket of apples before handing over a few coppers for the least-bruised fruit. A child tugged at her skirts, looking up at Diana with no sign of fear as she skidded to a halt.

They could make their way through, she and Lollia. If they skirted the Forum, and Lollia left off all her jewels . . .

Diana looked down the slope of the street, in the direction of the broken gates. Distantly she heard a roar—she’d think it was thunder, if she didn’t know it was bloodshed.

It wasn’t so far to the faction stables from here.

Diana hesitated only a moment.

I’ll just see if the horses have been moved to safety. That was all she wanted to know. The Reds faction director fled the city a week ago, taking his teams with him, but she didn’t know about the Blues. Were they stupid enough to think Vitellius would be able to shield them?

She took a detour around the Forum, circling through a maze of back streets. Normally she wouldn’t walk alone in such places, but the small streets were empty today, the windows shuttered, eyes glittering through cracks in doors. Two men darted past carrying bulging sacks, a mad beggar crouched mumbling in a vestibule, and over everything hung a strange silence.

Diana picked up her jog again. The Anemoi. She wouldn’t stay long. Just a quick look into the Blues stables to make sure the horses were safe, and then she’d go back home and take Lollia to safety. By morning everything would be done one way or another. Gods only knew where Vitellius was now—she heard some rumor he’d fled to his family home on the Aventine and barricaded himself inside, but who knew what was true?