He stopped.

“So sorry,” said Lepida Pollia, turning and pushing the hood off her high-piled black hair. “Thea couldn’t come.”

He backed away instinctively, as if a viper had just reared up in his path.

“Is that any way to treat an old friend?” Lepida gracefully shook off her cloak, revealing a jade-green gown and a rope of pearls around her neck. “We were once such good friends, Arius. I remember a certain banquet at my father’s house when you were very friendly—”

“Where’s Thea?” The words grated harshly on his ears.

“Why, she’s gone.” Lepida perched on the edge of his bed, cocking her head like an inquisitive bird. “Quite gone, my dear Arius.”

Something cold uncoiled in the pit of his stomach. “What do you mean?”

“My father sold her. The slave trader took her out of the city—oh, yesterday morning, I think.”

Slave trader. “Took her where?”

“Now how would I know that?” Lepida examined her gold-lacquered nails. “I don’t concern myself with slaves.”

The room whirled and turned white. Exactly the same effect, he thought dimly, as being crashed across the head with a shield boss.

“—I know you were fond of her, of course,” Lepida was chattering, “but she wasn’t worth it. Really. She let every man in the house cover her.”

Thea. Thea with her eyes half-closed as she sang, Thea laughing up into his eyes at night, Thea kissing him in a dark doorway and showing him how to be gentle. Thea.

“—I was really quite put out when you took her over me, you know.” A soft little hand touched his arm, kneaded it. “But I think I could be persuaded to forget. Are you in a persuasive mood, Arius?”

Thea. Thea. Thea.

He reached out, curving his hand around Lepida’s face. Her blue eyes sparkled, and she turned to sink her teeth playfully into his thumb.

“You—utter—bitch.” He sank his hand into her hair and threw her against the wall.

She staggered, rebounding, and before she could lift a finger he’d seized up the knife on the bedside table and flung her across the bed.

“Where’s Thea?” Blade pricking the soft white throat. “Where?” Lepida heaved in a breath to scream and he covered her mouth with a hard hand. Sharp little teeth sank into his palm, no longer playful, but the demon was roaring in his blood and he felt nothing. “I’ll carve you like a roast,” he whispered. “Where is she?”

Lepida heaved uselessly under his weight, spitting threats against his hand.

He ripped the knife through her high-piled hair. Wrenched a severed black curl loose and jabbed it in front of her eyes. “I’ll shave you bald as a leper. Where is she?”

The blue eyes spat poison over his palm.

He sliced off another handful of her hair. “Where is she?”

“In a whorehouse, that’s where she is!” Lepida spat when he removed his hand. “A whorehouse, any whorehouse in the Empire where savages pay for their sluts.”