As soon as she is in the seclusion of her own chambers, a sob escapes her. Amara clamps a hand to her mouth. Even here, she does not dare cry. Instead, she climbs onto the bed she has shared so many times with Philos, and lies rigid, fingers pressed to her face, covering her eyes. Pain lodges in her chest as she breathes in, then out, trying to expel images of her lover being beaten into confessing their affair. Amara is used to thinking on her feet, to facing down danger, but somehow, when confronted with the possibility of Philos suffering, she finds herself paralyzed. “It’s not true,” she murmurs to herself, rehearsing the words she might speak to Rufus. “It’s not true, my love, I promise you.”

Amara keeps her door wide open, straining to hear any sound from the atrium, her panic rising as time passes. When she finally hears Juventus and Philos’s voices, speaking dialect with Vitalio, at first, she cannot move. Then she scrambles from the bed, creeping to the edge of her second chamber to eavesdrop. With a sense of shock, she hears Juventus laugh. Philos’s reply, though curt, does not sound distressed and is followed by Vitalio’s voice, speaking in a low monotone. Clearly, whatever happened at the house, she and Philos have not been discovered. Amara presses her forehead against the cool of the painted wall, biting her lip to stop herself weeping with relief.

She has to wait until after nightfall to hear the truth of what happened. The story is so banal, Amara feels even more ashamed of the panic she suffered, and worse, her near inability to hide her emotions. Philos explains that a slave girl at the gem cutters was suspected of stealing, leading Rufus to call in him and Juventus to ask their opinion of the girl’s character. In the end, the missing items were discovered, and nobody needed to be punished. Amara can see Philos is unsettled after she confesses how she reacted.

“But even if I were questioned about us, you can’t go to pieces,” he whispers, arms tight around her. “Please, my darling. If something happens to me, it won’t be your fault. I chose to take this risk. And you must know I would never betray you, whatever they do to me. But if you get upset, you’ll only give yourself away, and that would ruin everything.”

“But why wouldn’t Vitalio tell me what had happened? I begged him, and he just shrugged it off.”

“He didn’t know what it was about, that’s all.”

“But he saw I was upset! He could at least have explained that you weren’t in danger. Instead, he insinuated I might have a guilty conscience.”