At Philos’s insistence, Amara spends increasing amounts of time with Julia, allowing the relationship to cast a protective shadow over Rufina. As the weeks pass, Amara begins to spend more evenings with Julia and Livia than she does at home. Julia always introduces her as the admiral’s freedwoman to guests, making her full name known: Gaia Plinia Amara. In spite of herself, Amara comes to enjoy these evenings outside the darkness of her flat, without the constant, exhausting needs of her daughter. She reclines in Julia’s outdoor dining room with the other guests, without having to worry about the expense of the food, the cost of the wine. Her only obligation is to be charming, and with Livia’s encouragement, she starts to play the lyre in company again, grateful that she kept the instrument back from sale.

When Amara gets home at night, creeping into bed beside Philos, he asks her about the guests Julia invited. In the darkness, it is hard to read his expression, but she can feel the tension in his body and hear the tightness in his voice. They never discuss the obvious, but Amara knows Philos is not so naive that he will not have understood what the easiest route out of their financial distress would be, the safest way to diffuse the threat that hangs over their child. They don’t need to discuss her former life as a rich man’s concubine. Instead, the past rests beside them in the bed, as tangible as a third, silent presence.

Amara keeps up her pursuit of Valentina, and her approaches to the midwife for work are not entirely fruitless. Valentina’s manner softens a little after Amara calls on her, bearing Pliny’s valuable scroll on plants, along with several herbal remedies to ease sickness that her father taught her. But for all her efforts to ingratiate herself, Amara knows learning a new trade will be time-consuming, with little chance of earning what she needs quickly enough to keep Felix at bay.

It is May, not long after the Lemuria, when Amara sees a familiar figure reclining in her landlady’s company. The jolt she feels is not so much from Demetrius’s presence, which she has long dreaded, but from the lack of warning Julia gave her that he would be joining them. Amara knows she has been outmaneuvered. Julia gestures at Demetrius, no doubt telling him of his prey’s approach, and he turns. The emperor’s freedman is older than she remembers, though the intensity behind his dark eyes is the same.

“Congratulations on the birth of your daughter,” he says, rising to greet her. His gaze sweeps over her now voluptuous figure, too polite to linger on her breasts. “Motherhood suits you.”

“Rufina is a dear little thing,” Livia remarks. “We’re all awfully fond of her.”