Amara waits while he collects his paints, packing them carefully into a box, his apprentice taking apart the platform to carry back to the workshop. Afterward she walks them both across the atrium to the door. There is no need to hand over the money now. Rufus, her patron and lover, can be relied upon to pay an account at his own leisure. At the doorway, Priscus hesitates. “I hope you will not mind if . . .” he trails off, then collects himself. “Salvius asked me to pass on his good wishes for your health, and his heartfelt thanks to the gods for your good fortune. He holds you in great esteem.”

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.