“Do you think he did?” There is desperation in Victoria’s eyes. It is one thing to suspect the man you love might be capable of murder, another to know it for sure.

“I think so,” Amara says. Victoria turns away, too upset to speak. “I owe you everything,” she says, taking Victoria’s hand. Her skin is icy cold. “And so does Felix. Without you, he would have no warning of what is coming.”

“How are we going to get home? What if somebody remembers us?”

“Nobody will. We are nobody. We’ll just head back into town slowly, keep our heads down. It will be days before the body is discovered. If it ever is.”

Victoria stands up, gripping the tomb to steady herself. “Some benefits to being worthless, I guess.”

They pick their way slowly through the necropolis, not walking back the way they came. It takes a long time to find the road again, and when they do, it’s an even longer trudge. Victoria is jumpy, but Amara grips her hand, stops her walking too fast. They pull their hoods up, as if to keep out the cold, half hiding their faces. Neither of them says a word.

By the time they reach the brothel, after what has felt like the longest walk of their lives, both women are ready to drop from exhaustion. Amara raps on Felix’s door.

“What?” Paris glowers at them both through the crack.

Amara slams her hand on the wood. “Don’t mess me around today. This is important.”

He stands back to let them in. “But Felix is with a client!”

“Then tell him we’re waiting for him in the bedroom.”

Amara feels as if she is standing outside herself, watching Victoria recount what has happened. She has never seen anyone cry so much. Victoria sobs her way through the murder, and all the while, Felix is holding her, kissing her face, pressing her hands to warm them. There is a tenderness to him Amara could never have imagined. She watches, a pain in her chest that she cannot name. He has never been like that with her, not even when she told him about Cressa, when she would have done anything to be comforted. Nobody but Menander has ever held her the way Felix is holding Victoria. The thought upsets her. She is not sure whether it makes Felix worse, if he is capable of love.

He looks up at her over Victoria’s bent head, the familiar coldness in his eyes. It is as if he has stepped outside himself too, in order to talk to her. “Tell me again what he said about Simo.”

“He said you won’t get away with it. You didn’t cover your tracks. Simo discovered what happened.” She pauses, remembering, as if the violence happened to somebody else. “Then he held a knife to my eye and said, This is for Drauca.”

“And nobody saw?”