“—family lackey, that’s what I am.” Cornelia could hear her sister muttering to herself as she thumped upstairs. “Don’t send a slave out in this weather, oh no, they might get sick and die and there goes fifteen thousand denarii. Send Marcella, she’s expendable—”

Oh, why didn’t I just stab myself without all the trimmings? Cornelia wailed inside. Dead is dead!

A knock came at the door, and Marcella’s voice sounded. “Cornelia?”

She dived across the room to hide the urn.

“Cornelia, you can’t be sleeping. Nobody could sleep through that racket downstairs.” Marcella struck open the door. “One Emperor murdered this year and another one crowned, but none of it with a quarter of the hysteria that descends on this house every time Tullia hosts—” Marcella stopped. Too late, Cornelia remembered to hold the dagger behind her back.

Marcella’s eyebrows rose, gaze traveling around the room from her sister’s black dress to the cup of wine to the basalt urn Cornelia hadn’t quite managed to hide. “Goodness,” Marcella said at last. “I know you’d do anything to avoid Tullia’s dinner party, but suicide seems a little extreme.”

Outside in the hall came the sound of a slap, a slave bursting into tears, the steward scolding. Below, Diana was still roaring at Gaius. Suddenly Cornelia couldn’t help a smile, as she brought the dagger out from behind her back and turned it over in her hands. “All houses sound alike when they’re preparing for a dinner party, don’t they?”

“Not as much shrieking as ours,” Marcella said.

“Piso and I gave so many parties.” The memory was suddenly vivid, and Cornelia felt her throat tighten. “He was always wandering in asking where I’d put his best synthesis, just when everything was the most chaotic. That annoyed me so much . . . but afterward we’d sit in the triclinium sharing a cup of wine while the slaves cleared up, and we’d laugh about the things our guests said.” Her smile wobbled, and she put it away before it could turn to tears. “I can’t imagine him laughing now.”

“All right, that’s enough.” Marcella marched in, calling over one shoulder for Cornelia’s maid.

“Go away.” Cornelia tested the edge of the dagger, eyes still blurring. “I’m going to join my husband.”

“Oh, no, you’re not,” Marcella said. “Though it’s a pity to dismantle such a beautiful scene. Really, you have all the details just perfect, and if this were a history and you were an empress, I’d commend your sense of the proprieties.”

“Marcella, I’ve made up my mind, so please don’t—what are you doing?”

“Bringing you back to your senses, that’s what I’m doing. Please take this back to the mausoleum,” Marcella instructed the maid, plunking the urn of Piso’s ashes into her startled hands.

“You can’t stop me!” Cornelia cried.