The last few days are the worst, the hours slipping through Amara’s fingers like sand. She had imagined wanting to spend every waking moment with Rufina, but instead, she finds it increasingly painful to see her baby, knowing she will have to leave her, and after the wet nurse arrives, Amara cannot bear to be in the house.

Britannica’s friendship, her largely silent presence, is Amara’s greatest comfort. And it is Britannica who helps Amara with the most dangerous of her final acts in Pompeii: a return to the Wolf Den.

They arrive at Felix’s bar, not the brothel, and the place reminds Amara of the tavern Felix once took her to—a tiny, grubby hole, dark even in the daylight. A woman is bent over the counter, cleaning the surface. She looks up to see Amara and Britannica standing in the doorway, blocking out what little light remains, and cries out. It is Beronice.

“Gallus!”

Summoned by Beronice’s shriek, a familiar figure emerges, feet first, down a ladder in the corner. Gallus scowls at the sight of the two former she-wolves and jerks his head at Amara. “What do you want?”

“That’s not a very pleasant greeting for old friends,” Amara replies, walking to the counter. “What else would we want, but to see our darling Beronice? And Victoria, of course. Perhaps you could send for her.”

Gallus steps in front of Beronice, shielding her. “My wife is not your slave.”

“No,” Amara says. “She’s yours.”

“Perhaps you go fetch Victoria yourself?” It is Britannica this time, addressing Gallus. The Briton’s hand is on the hilt of her knife, and she looks straight into the eyes of her former tormentor, without a trace of fear. “We don’t like to wait.”

Amara keeps watch on the customers behind them while Britannica stands in front of Gallus. Two drinkers are gawking from the corner, but neither man looks like they would be keen to join a fight. She and Britannica deliberately picked a quiet time of the morning to visit. There is still no movement from the married couple at the bar. Britannica’s fingers curl around her dagger as if about to draw. The Briton is taller than Gallus, and in much better shape. Amara has no doubt who would win a knife fight, and nor it seems has Gallus. “Go fetch her,” Felix’s freedman barks at his wife. Beronice scurries past her former friends and out into the street.

“You’ll fucking regret this,” Gallus snarls at Amara.

“I doubt that,” she replies, deliberately echoing the way Felix speaks, the clipped cadences of his voice. Amara smiles at Gallus’s look of startled recognition.