Amara lights her own flame last. She does not dare look in Philos’s face, but deliberately touches his hand as she reaches out to hold the lamp steady, forming an unspoken connection between them. She glances around to make sure everyone else’s light is still burning, then leads the women through the darkened atrium. Juventus lets them out onto the street.

Other women are already walking along the pavements, holding up torches or candles. Those furthest away glimmer like a scattering of stars in the dusk. Men and children watch from windows and doorways as they pass, and neighbors call to one another, the air warm with good humor and the last lingering heat of the sun. Lais and Phoebe hold hands, and Amara remembers how she used to walk like that with Dido. She hopes the flautists are not separated whenever she and Drusilla sell them.

It becomes darker as they leave the town, walking out of the Theater Gate toward the river. A narrow path off the main road has been set with flaming lamps to guide them. They pass villas and vineyards, the trailing lights of their torches illuminating everything they touch. Some of the women in the procession sing snatches of song, and Victoria joins them, her sweet voice ringing out loudly. The words are unfamiliar to Amara.

They reach the small shrine to Diana that sits at a curve in the river, planted around with cypress trees. It is surrounded by women and dancing flames. In spite of the crowd, the air is much cooler here near the rushing black water, and Amara is grateful for her cloak. There is no formal ritual or priest, and so Amara and the others wait until it is their turn to tie the prayer ribbons to the cypress trees. Britannica knots hers to a high branch where it hangs, alone, above the rest.

“Did anyone bring an offering?” Amara asks. The others shake their heads. She turns to Britannica. “Will you come with me, while I leave mine?”

The Briton nods, and from the savage expression on her face, made even more sinister by the glow of the flame she is holding, Amara guesses Britannica is eager to see some token of violence left at the hunter’s shrine. They walk side by side to the heap of offerings.