Alexandria sighed in irritation as she saw her brooch had been taken from the clothes she’d folded the night before. A quick look in the other rooms revealed that Octavian had left the house early, and she firmed her jaw as she closed the door behind her on her way to Tabbic’s workshop. It wasn’t just the valuable silver, or even the many hours she had put in shaping and polishing the brooch. It was the only one she had made for herself alone, and many of those who became buyers had seen and commented on it when they met her. The design was a simple eagle, which she wouldn’t have chosen for her own shoulder if it hadn’t become the symbol of all the legions and universally desirable. It was mainly officers who stopped her and asked about it, and to have it stolen by a grubby urchin made her clench and unclench her fists as she walked, her cloak falling loose around her shoulders and needing to be hitched up without the brooch.

Not only was he a thief but an idiot, she thought. How could he expect not to be caught? One worrying possibility was that the boy was so used to punishment that he had discounted it for the prize of her brooch, willing to take whatever came his way as long as he could keep it. Alexandria shook her head in irritation, muttering to herself what she would do when she saw him. He couldn’t be shamed, even in front of his mother. She had seen that when the butcher’s boys came for the meat he had taken.

Perhaps it would be better not to mention it to Atia. The thought of seeing the humiliation on her face was painful, and even after less than a week in her new room Alexandria had come to like the woman. She had pride and a sort of dignity. It was such a pity that none of it seemed to reach the son.

Tabbic’s shop had been damaged toward the end of the riots two years before. Alexandria had helped him to rebuild, learning a little carpentry as he remade the door and workbenches. His livelihood had been saved by the timely removal of all the valuable metals to his own home above, well barricaded against the gangs of raptores that had run wild while the city was in chaos. As Alexandria approached the modest little premises, she resolved not to burden him with her irritation. She owed him a great deal, and not only for letting her stay safe with his family during the worst of it. It didn’t seem to need saying, but there was a debt owed to Tabbic that she had vowed would be paid.