“Here, open that door.” He shouldered a heavy door open obediently at her order and came out into sunlight.

“Hand the children up into that wagon. Quickly. There you go, little one—no, no, don’t cry, it’s all right. Marcellus, drive.” She sent the horses and their driver off with a slap, then whirled to beckon Arius. “Here’s my litter. Get in.”

He stared at the lavishly dressed woman, the silver litter, the velvet cushions and silk drapes. It was all too unreal.

“Get in,” repeated Lady Flavia Domitilla. “Or do you want to be speared by Praetorians?”

“Wait a moment.”

“But we haven’t got—”

He reversed to the door, limped to the first turn of the passage, and putting two fingers to his lips let out a whistle. A moment later and the dog came trotting out, a half-chewed glove hanging from her teeth.

“We leave now,” came Lady Flavia’s voice from the litter. “Are you coming or not?”

He scooped up the dog and got in.

THEA

FIRE!” “Fire!”

“The gladiator barracks are on fire!”

One of the guards seized my arm, hurrying me out of the Imperial box behind Domitian and the Empress. Craning my neck, I could see the smoke rising from the Gate of Death. Dear God—Arius—

I came dizzily into the square outside the Colosseum, under the shadow of Nero’s colossal statue. People pressed in all directions, mothers locking frantic fingers around the wrists of their children, men shoving and shouting. The Praetorians assigned to my protection cursed and gripped their shields, applying armored shoulders to the crush, and I flattened myself back against the steps of the Temple of Venus. Over the frantic press of pleb heads I saw a bare flash of the Emperor, still snapping at his Praetorians, and then a hand closed around my wrist and yanked me into a vestibule in the temple’s east wall.

“Hey,” a very familiar voice said.

“Vix?” I gaped in astonishment at my dusty son, heart suddenly expanding out to fill my ribs, and then seized him in a fierce hug. As soon as I felt his solid weight against me I didn’t think I could ever let him go again. “Vercingetorix, what are you doing here?” I whispered around the block in my throat.

“Ran away,” he said, muffled against my shoulder. He sounded cocky as ever, but his rough paw found my hand under cover of my cloak and gripped it hard. “Larcius’s brother, he’s all right but his steward had it in for me. Put me to work in the kitchen yards, and there was this thing with the prize geese, and not that many of them got stolen, but the steward said he was gonna sell me to a salt mine. So I sneaked into a wagon train going north.”

“Misenum to Ravenna, and then on to Rome?” I smiled into his hair. I should have known that no new master could keep my son in check. He looked so dusty and tired, his lip jutting as he tried so hard not to look like he’d been missing me—