“Vix?” She chuckled. “How nice of him. I shall have to find some way of saying thank you.”

VIX

“Vix?”

I halted abruptly in my hazy stumble across the gardens. Night had fallen, and there was no moon telling me who had called my name. My hand slipped to the short sword I still carried by habit at my belt, even when I just went out for a quick drink. “Who’s there?”

“Just me.” The vague shape of an arm waved over the blackness of the grass.

“Lady Sabina?” I took a step forward.

“Don’t stab me.” Another movement in the dark and I made her out: stretched full length in the grass, waving a lazy hand overhead.

My hand loosened on the sword hilt. “What are you doing out here?”

“It’s the first night in a week it hasn’t rained.”

True, it had been a hot, wet string of days. Warm air had wrapped the city like a damp wool cloak ever since we’d returned from Baiae, and almost every night it had rained in a hot restless flood that ran fitfully over the rooftop gutters without relieving the heat. No wonder the rich preferred their seaside villas. I had a fleeting yearning for Baiae with its uppity whores and cool sea breezes, but I took another step into the dry grass of the garden. “What are you doing here, Lady?”

For the past week she’d been holed up with her books and maps in her father’s study, while her nurse fussed at her with fans and cold drinks and the few remaining suitors still in the city drifted off to cooler breezes and less elusive targets. But my eyes had grown accustomed to the dark now, and I saw the senator’s daughter stretched out flat on her back on the grass, ankles crossed and arms folded under her head. “I’m stargazing.” She tilted her chin at me. “Is that wine you’ve got?”

“Um. Yes, I brought a jug from the tavern.” Hoping I could get the freckled maid named Gaia to drink with me and maybe let me under her blankets again. “It’s my night off, I wasn’t coming on duty drunk—”

“I’m not the steward, Vix. I’m not going to scold you. Not if you let me have some.”

“It’s unwatered.”

“Really? My father won’t let me drink wine, much less unwatered wine.”

“He shouldn’t. It’s very strong.”

She sat up in the grass. “Give it over, then.”

I sat down in the grass, handing over my jug. The garden had turned to shadows all around—jasmine bushes in fragrant shadows, something silvery and night-blooming in paler shadows, columns framing everything in tall shadows—but there were no torches. The rest of the household had long since gone to bed. “No cups,” I warned.