“Marcella!” Cornelia screamed. “Marcella!” She hauled Diana’s taut arm, pointing, and Diana looked up to see her cousin. She’s dead, surely she’s dead—but Marcella was alive, and gods only knew how Cornelia managed to catch sight of her in this maelstrom. Their cousin stood in her pale-blue stola beside the altar of Mars, her hair whipping about her calm face: a column of ice watching the slaughter. There were a score of plebs around her, cheering various struggling combatants and slapping down coins in bets, but she stood quite still.

“Marcella!” Lollia added her voice to Cornelia’s, shouting, and finally Marcella heard. Her head turned and Diana saw the calm carved face, the watchful eyes, and then she was running toward the chariot.

“Diana, stop the horses, you have to stop them—”

“—Can’t—” she gritted through bared teeth, her blistered palms weeping blood, but she threw her whole body back on the reins and the Anemoi pulled up in a thrash of hooves, dripping foam, shrieking like the wounded men in the fountain. The chariot tilted perilously on one wheel and they all clutched at the rail, but it righted itself and the horses gathered to run again, and this time they tore the reins through Diana’s hands in a blaze of agony. She knew she’d never hold them now, but Marcella was close, and Lollia and Cornelia put out their hands and brought her flying up into the chariot as the Reds lunged into a crazed gallop. A legionary tried to grab for Boreas’s reins but recoiled screaming as the old stallion swiped foam-flecked teeth at him and took off his ear and half his cheek. Diana fumbled whitely for the reins, every finger sawed open and bleeding, but Marcella was clinging safe to the chariot rail, squashed up against Lollia with Cornelia on her other side. There was barely room for the four of them and Marcella hung perilously off the back, but her eyes were gleaming. “Where are we going?” she shouted, but Diana was fighting the horses and had no breath left to answer.

The Aurelian Gate was open, littered by half a dozen prowling guards. They stepped into the path at the sound of hooves, holding their spears up to halt the chariot, but the Anemoi ran them down without a blink. Diana felt the bodies bump under the wheels and Cornelia nearly slipped off the back of the chariot, but Lollia flung an arm around her waist and hauled her back in. They clung to each other, the four Cornelias crammed close behind four runaway horses, and first Diana looked up at the sky and saw that night had fallen, and then she looked back and realized they’d left the city behind.

Twenty-one

Twenty-one

“WHAT is this place?” Marcella blinked sleepily in the dawn light, looking up at the dusty rafters overhead.