“Tie them up.” Lepida pointed; an imperious child. “Use lots of rope on him.”

Arius stood quite still in the middle of the room, his eyes flicking from Lepida to me and back again. The slaves roped him roughly, and his eyes blazed.

“Better tie him to a pillar, too,” Lepida decided. “Just to be safe. As for her, you can just put her on that chair and tie her hands. She’s too stupid to be dangerous.”

The slave took the knife away from my throat, and Arius lunged. The rope caught his feet around the ankles and he fell, taking half a dozen slaves with him. He got an arm free, and one of the guards howled as his nose exploded in a spray of blood. But the other closed in, swinging a club, and I heard the familiar sound of my lover’s bones snapping.

No. No. No.

They roped him to a pillar, cracking his head against the marble, and I saw a trickle of blood slide from his hair into his dizzied eyes.

“I hope they didn’t break anything too important.” Lepida peered at Arius from a good distance. “Leave some for the Imperial executioners.”

Arius spat a mouthful of blood at her.

“Your temper hasn’t sweetened with age, has it?” She looked back and forth between us. “Excellent. Now, as for you”—to the slaves—“back to your quarters, all of you. If any of you make a sound, I’ll find out and I’ll feed you to the eels. You two”—pointing to her own hulking guards—“lock the slaves in their quarters. Search the house; I want them all confined in case anyone decides to run a message to Marcus. Then wait outside with my litter.”

She might not be mistress here anymore, but the slaves had lost none of their fear of her. They filed meekly through the door, throwing wide-eyed looks behind them, prodded along by Lepida’s two thugs. Lepida waited until the door closed, then whirled on us, color shining high in her cheeks. “Oh, how lovely,” she breathed. “What am I going to do with you two?”

Over her shoulder through the half-open door, I saw a flicker. A pair of blue eyes in a narrow bruised little face. Marcus’s daughter? Lepida’s daughter? I expected a scream, but the blue eyes took everything in silently, and she was gone as fast as she’d come.

“Well,” said Lepida, oblivious. “I can’t be too long, because I’ve got an appointment at the Domus Augustana. And you two have an appointment here—with my husband, I assume. Some plot against the Emperor? How like Marcus.”

I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t swallow. Couldn’t even blink. No. No.

“I can’t imagine the details of your little plot, but I’m sure the Emperor’s torturers will get it out of Marcus.” Lepida smiled. “The Emperor will be very grateful to me, I imagine. What should I ask for? I won’t have to ask him to knock the head off your beloved Arius here, or your son. He’ll do that anyway. I could ask him to leave you alive, though—you could be my maid again! Polish my nails, scrub my back, do my hair. You were always very good at hair.”