Victoria leaps up from the couch and spins round and round in her new dress, laughing. She grabs hold of Amara’s hands, spinning her around too. “The rest of the house!” Victoria cries. “Show me the rest!”

The three of them run from room to room like children. Amara has not felt such abandoned joy since she came here. She takes her friends to the tablinum, the dining room off the atrium, and then they head to the three rooms upstairs. “This can be yours,” Amara says to Victoria, walking along the inside balcony. “We can fit it up better over time.” The room is white, like her private study, and almost empty save for an old couch and a side table that was too tarnished for elsewhere, but Victoria looks thrilled. Amara leads them to one of the much smaller rooms next door, not much bigger than the cell at the end where Martha sleeps. She smiles at Britannica, feeling a little embarrassed by the obvious difference. “And maybe this for you?” Britannica nods.

“And what about the garden!” Victoria exclaims. “I can’t believe you have a fountain!” She rushes down the stairs before Amara can warn her about the painting. By the time Amara has caught up with her, Victoria is already standing, frozen, beneath the giant figure of Dido. She turns to Amara, eyes wide with shock. “What have you done?”

“Remembered her.”

“But Dido never looked like this!” Victoria gestures at the wall, and its gruesome carnival of death. “She was gentle and kind. This is horrible! Dido never hated anyone, still less wished them harm!”

“How do you know what her shade would wish?” Amara says. “Does Dido have no right to vengeance?”

“But Balbus is dead!” Victoria says, speaking of the murderer who meant to kill Felix, and hit Dido instead. She points at the stag. “So who is that?”

“You know who it is,” Amara replies. The two women stare at one another, until Victoria quails in the face of Amara’s coldness. She heads back into the atrium, toward Amara’s dressing room, shoulders hunched with distress.

Britannica catches Amara’s arm, preventing her from going after Victoria. “Leave her.” Felix’s two remaining women stand side by side in the garden, looking up at their former companion. Amara remembers how Britannica held Dido in her arms while she died, how she risked her own life trying to save her. Britannica is looking at the painting with an expression of grim satisfaction, and Amara senses that here, at least, is one person who truly understands what she has done. Then Britannica turns to her. “What is afterthought?”

Amara opens her mouth to explain the meaning, before realizing that Britannica already knows.

7

“A small problem gets bigger if you ignore it”

—Pompeii graffiti