Amara’s face betrays no sign of the turmoil she feels at this reminder of her old life. She is conscious of Juventus, the porter, no doubt listening to every word, even as he stands silent at his post. “That is kind of your friend. Please pass on my thanks and good wishes for his own health.” She nods, polite but distant, and walks away before Priscus can say anything more. The mention of Salvius has flooded her mind with unwanted memories. His hands on her body, his nakedness, the weight of him, and then worse, not Salvius, but the fear and darkness of her old cell at the brothel, the violence and the pain. Her past is the whirlpool Charybdis, pulling her down under the waves where she cannot breathe.

Amara walks swiftly up the stairs to her private study, trying not to run, and shuts the door. Her legs are trembling. She sits down at the desk, hands flat on its wooden surface, trying to crush the rising panic. Her mind is playing tricks on her again, giving her the sense that she is not here, where her eyes tell her she is sitting, but back there, in Felix’s Wolf Den. Blood thuds in her ears as she searches in the drawer for the box that always calms her. It is heavy in her hands. She sets it down and opens the lid. Inside is all the money she has earned since she came to live here, a mixture of loans she has collected and the generous allowance Rufus gives her. She runs her fingers through the coins, feeling their reassuring weight, listening to the sound of them drop, like the gentle patter of rain.

She arranged this room to be as unlike Felix’s study as possible, placing the furniture at unfamiliar angles, making everything look different. The walls are white, not red; small cupids balance gracefully at intervals along the walls, one with a harp, another with a bow. Every small, pale figure, each careful brushstroke on their bodies, is more finely drawn than anything in the Wolf Den, yet somehow, the images are less vivid than the bulls’ skulls and black plinths she remembers. If she closes her eyes, Amara knows she will see them. There is something about sitting behind a desk that always makes her think of her old master. Even in her dreams, this is how she remembers him. The sharp lines of his body bent over the books, the tilt of his head glancing up, the strength in his hands.

A knock at the door startles her back into the present. “Who is it?”

Martha enters. Amara smiles, but her maid only looks at the floor. “Shall I get you ready to see Drusilla, mistress?” Martha’s accent is so strong Amara sometimes struggles to understand her.