He found Thea halfway down a tenement side street. Walking tall and straight, arms swinging easily at her sides. He caught up in a few strides. “Stupid,” he said roughly. “Stupid to walk alone in this part of the city.”

“My mistress is expecting me.” She looked straight ahead, ignoring the dust that a spiteful breeze blew up against her face. “Lady Lepida Pollia doesn’t wait.”

“It’s going to rain.”

“No matter. I like rain.”

They walked along in silence.

“You fought well today, Barbarian.”

He shook the dust out of his eyes; the wind was picking up. More silence. They rounded a corner, ducked into a new gust.

“Who are you killing?” Thea’s voice was barely audible over the pulse of the wind. “You don’t kill for the fun of it. Or the applause. Or the money. So who are you really killing when you put your sword through all those Greeks and Thracians and Gauls?”

Gallus. The Emperor. The crowd. “Everyone.”

“Even me?”

“Just—just once.”

“Only once? Oh.”

“The Amazon. Remember? She had—she had dark eyes—desperate, but not—and your eyes, they—” He stuttered to a halt, struggling for words. “Never mind.”

“You killed her.”

“She wanted it.”

“What if I wanted it?” Thea halted in the blustering wind, tipping her head back. “Right now. Would you finish me off? I’ve been trying for years, a bowl at a time, but it’s obvious I’m getting nowhere.” She held out her hands, palm up. The scars along her wrists gleamed white. “Would you kill me, please?”

“What?”

“Here, I’ll even start it for you.” In one swift movement she stooped, dislodged a sharp stone from the road, and raked it down her wrist. Blood welled, sickeningly vivid in the gray light. “Finish it.”

“No.” He looked at her, looked and couldn’t look away. He wasn’t any good with words. “No.”

For a moment she gazed back at him, her dark eyes as savagely miserable as the Amazon’s. Then she pulled her bleeding arm close, cradling it against her breast like a baby, and pulled away. As she turned, her sandal strap broke and she tripped.

He caught her before he even realized she was falling, lifting her off her feet in both arms before she could sprawl across the hard stones. She caught at his shoulder, her work-hardened hand curling against the nape of his bare neck and leaking blood. He clutched her awkwardly off the ground as the wind tore at her hair, and he wanted her so badly.

He dropped her, and they stared at each other. Her mouth, he thought, would taste cool and sweet.

The first clap of thunder roared overhead, and they looked away. For the first time Thea seemed to feel the cold; she crossed her arms over her breasts and the sight of her bleeding wrist hit him like a stone barrier. “I—I should get this tied up,” she said, and he nodded dumb agreement.

There were no shops, no taverns to duck into. Only a dark vestibule to a tenement house, the door barred. Arius banged, but no one answered. The wind picked up, blowing dust down the road in buffeting clouds, and he could see flickers of lightning beyond the distant edge of the Colosseum. He groped for words, any words. “Your mistress. She’ll be angry?”