“Enter.”

Paulinus gave a smart salute, meticulously keeping his eyes from me. Domitian pushed me aside and saluted back, smiling. I wondered with a mad calmness if he had orders for Paulinus’s death, too, once his own finally struck. The best friend of a god would surely not be allowed to outlast the god himself . . .

“A slave has arrived, sir,” Paulinus was saying. “He claims to have information about a conspiracy.”

“Conspiracy.” Domitian started upright. “Dear gods, what time is it?”

I spoke, muffling my voice in the corner of the couch. “A little past the sixth hour.” I raised my eyes, red-rimmed with surreptitious rubbing. “You managed to cheat death after all, Caesar. May God damn you.”

“The sixth hour?” Domitian’s eyes swung toward the vast window, where the sun still showed over the Tiber.

“The sixth.” Paulinus sounded puzzled. “I thought you’d be keeping track.”

“I was . . . distracted.” Domitian’s smile grew and broadened. “Nessus caught in a mistake at last! Him and his stars.” The Lord and God of Rome rose from the sleeping couch. “I feel young again—like I could conquer Persia. Perhaps I will. My cloak, Paulinus. I’ll dine well tonight.”

“The slave, sir?” Paulinus asked. “He says he has important information.”

Domitian hesitated, then shrugged. “Show him in.”

Paulinus dismissed the guards, and Domitian settled himself on the edge of his sleeping couch. “Enter, slave. You are—?”

“Stephanus, Lord and God.” The voice rumbled in my ears. “Former gardener to Lady Flavia Domitilla.” I trained my eyes on the carved silver arm of the sleeping couch, still weeping softly, every nerve in my body humming like a harp string. The only thing I saw of Arius was the white sling that muffled his arm.

Domitian frowned. “You have information?”

“Found papers. Didn’t look right to me.” The knotted brown hand I loved so well passed over a scroll: lists of closely written names.

“Senator Nerva?” said Domitian, reading. “Who would have thought?” He unrolled the parchment, and as I risked a glance up, I saw his eyes fell on Vix. My son, crouched forgotten in the corner where the guards had dropped him—but his head was up, and his blazing eyes fixed directly on the slave supposedly named Stephanus. The slave behind whose head the sun slanted much too high over the Tiber for twilight.

DOMITIAN’S eyes flicked back and forth, panic settling in just as Arius pulled a dagger from the sling around his arm.

The Emperor screamed as the dagger plunged into his groin.

The demon howled its pleasure. Arius howled back.

He flung himself forward, shaking the false bandage off his arm, and struck again. The Emperor got an arm up and the blade sheared along the length of the bone. Blood leaped up, spraying Arius’s face. He breathed it in like Indian perfume.

In the dull reflection of the moonstone, he saw Thea grope under the bed in the tangle of silk sheets, snatching up the Emperor’s fallen dagger, half-running and half-falling across the room to throw herself over Vix. That first blow in the groin had been for her. For the weeping he’d heard as he waited outside the door. For the Emperor’s laughter.