Amara hesitates. There is no question in her mind what she should do, only whether she has the courage. “This?” She turns round to look at Menander as if she has only just noticed him. “He’s nobody! Some boy who wanted to give me a gift on the Saturnalia, because he said I had a pretty face. I don’t even know his name.” She laughs. “Why are you so angry?” she exclaims, taking Rufus’s hand. “Don’t be ridiculous! You cannot possibly imagine you have anything to be jealous about. He’s just some slave boy.” Amara is aware of Philos, standing beside his master, but she ignores him. It’s not Philos she needs to convince. “Look, I’ll prove it to you,” she says, as if humoring a child. “I can just give it back to him, let him give it to some other girl,” she inclines her head, teasing, looking at him from under lowered eyelashes. “Though I’m sorry if you think I’m not the prettiest girl at the Saturnalia, because that’s who he wanted to give it to.”

Amara is almost carried along by her own performance until she turns to face Menander again. He is staring at her as if she were a stranger. She holds the lamp out, looking into his eyes, willing him to understand. “I’m sorry but I cannot take this.” He does not move. She forces herself to take a step toward him, still holding his gift, offering it to him. Amara’s hand is trembling, and the glaze slips through her fingers. The lamp smashes at Menander’s feet.

The shock of it makes her gasp. She and Menander stare at one another. She understands, seeing his face then, that whatever affection was once between them has ended. Amara looks down at the ground. Shards of glazed clay are scattered at her feet. All that work, engraved with such love, marked with memories of home and who she used to be, gone. She remembers Cressa’s smashed pot at the necropolis, the man dying, the sacrifice Victoria made to save her life. The only choice she can ever make is to survive. “Oops, silly me,” she says, turning to Rufus, biting her lip as if it were a joke. “I seem to have broken it!”

It is perhaps her callous disregard which finally convinces him. He strides over, puts an arm around her. “Sorry, boy,” Rufus says to Menander, reaching into his purse for some coins. “My girlfriend didn’t mean to be clumsy. I hope this compensates you.”

Menander takes the money, not looking at Amara. “You’re very generous, sir,” he says.

Rufus physically turns her, back toward where Philos and Dido are standing, obviously eager to forget the whole incident. “How ridiculous I am,” he says, kissing her. “I’m sorry to have been jealous.”