She took the jug from my hand and took a healthy swig. “Gods, that’s vile. Did my brother really die a hero?”

“Yes.” I’d liked her older brother, a black-haired officer in the Praetorians who had tried to do his best by everybody. It never worked, doing that, but he’d tried anyway. “He was a hero.”

“I miss him.” Sabina drew up her knees, resting her folded arms on top. “A girl likes having a brother.”

“You have Linus.”

“Yes, but he’s my little brother. As long as he lives, I’ll be the one watching out for him. A big brother, now—a girl always knows she’s safe.”

“He threatened to take my head off for kissing you,” I remembered. “Told me to keep my grubby hands off.”

“See, there you go.”

“Sorry about your mother.” I swigged from the jug. “The closet, and all.”

“I’m not,” Sabina said. “She wasn’t much of a mother. Wasn’t much of a human being, truth be told.”

“Well, no.” Her mother had been a bitch of the first order, and I was glad Sabina didn’t look like her even though she’d been a beauty, because I couldn’t have kissed any girl who looked like that she-viper. “I don’t know who killed her in that closet, though,” I added. “Wasn’t me.”

“She had a lot of enemies. In all the chaos, someone saw a chance.” Sabina tugged the jug out of my hand. “This disgusting wine is growing on me.”

“It does that.”

She took a swallow and lay back in the grass. “Thank you for telling me, Vix.”

“Glad I could.” I slid down on one elbow, cocking my head back at the dark sky. “You like stargazing?”

“Yes. Makes everything down here very small.”

“An astrologer read my stars once.” The same day Emperor Domitian had died, actually. “He said I’d have a legion someday, and that I’d be called Vercingetorix the Red.”

“Did you believe him?”

“Don’t know. He was a funny little man—tubby and cheerful, not like you picture an astrologer. But the things he said had a habit of coming true.”

Sabina was still gazing up into the sky. “I don’t think I believe in reading the stars. Why would the gods bother laying out our lives for us? I think they’d rather keep us in suspense.”

“I believe in my stars. I’ll make them go where I want.”

She regarded me thoughtfully. “I think you actually could.”

I tilted my head up. “Good stars tonight.”

“Vix.”

“What?”

“Are you going to kiss me now? Or do we have to talk about stars some more?”