Marcella knew of Senator Marcus Salvius Otho, of course—one of Emperor Nero’s boon companions, at least until the minor problem arose when Nero fell in love with Otho’s wife, married her, then kicked her to death. But did I ever meet him before? The narrow, clever face looked familiar somehow.

Familiar or not, Senator Otho had a pair of red-and-gold Praetorians at his back, just like Piso’s.

Well, well, Marcella thought. Does Piso have a rival? Perhaps her brother-in-law’s ascension to Imperial heir wasn’t so certain as everyone assumed. Given Cornelia’s suddenly neutral expression, she was thinking exactly the same thing.

“My dear Lollia!” Otho paused before them, his black eyes sparkling amusement. “It’s been an age. You’re newly married? Congratulations, Senator Vinius,” he called across the box. “You have caught Rome’s most charming woman for a wife. And you, Lollia, have snared Rome’s wisest statesman!”

Vinius preened, mollified. Otho smiled again dazzlingly, and Marcella noted how many of the guests whispered behind their hands as they looked at him. Piso was looking decidedly nonplussed now.

“Reds!” Diana jumped up with a raucous cheer as the Reds chariots paraded past on the track below. “Reds!”

Otho’s amused gaze transferred to Diana. “There’s a young lady who likes the races.” A titter rippled through his party—like Nero, he traveled in a party of sculpted women and gleaming men; everyone young, everyone handsome, everyone amusing. He had taken over the Cornelii box like it was his own. “So this is the charming little Cornelia Quarta, for whom half my friends are perishing of love! Or I hear you are called Diana? How very fitting—”

“Sshh!” Diana hushed him impatiently, leaning forward over the railing, and let out a cry with the rest of the crowd as the cloth dropped and twenty-eight horses surged forward over the sand, noses straining and colored plumes blowing. Emperor Galba sat hunched in his box reviewing his accounts, but the plebs were all on their feet, shouting, waving colored pennants, clutching their medallions as the chariots flew into the hairpin turn at lunatic speeds. Even Marcella had to admit it was a stirring sight. Where else could you find two hundred fifty thousand people all going mad at once? Perhaps a war . . .

“Stir them up!” Diana shouted down at the first Reds charioteer as he got rattled out of the turn and dropped into fourth. “Gods’ wheels, stir them up!”

“You’ll have to excuse my cousin, Senator Otho.” Cornelia approached with outstretched hands, her smile serene and warm—but Marcella knew her sister and saw the unease at the back of her eyes as she looked at Otho’s Praetorians. “Diana lives for the Reds, and nothing we can say will quell her.”