The potter’s shop is not too far along the Via Pompeiiana. It’s impossible to miss with its huge mural of Venus surrounded by lamps on the front wall. The painting picks out the warmth of the flames on the goddess’s features, the light reflected in her eyes. Behind her is a pink shell and the pale blue of the sea. Small potters work at her feet, shaping lamps and statues, feeding a tiny kiln, a miniature representation of the business Amara is about to enter.

The shop front is shallow and apparently empty. Through a doorway at the back she can see slaves and the red glow of the kilns. Somebody will be back in a moment. Around her, every possible surface is lined with lamps. She turns to look, careful not to knock into anything. Some are beautiful, so much lovelier than the ones she is here to buy. Amara picks up a small glazed light from the nearest shelf, gently stroking its surface with her finger. An image of Pallas Athene is stamped on it, an owl’s face on her breastplate.

“That’s one of mine.”

She looks up. A slave is watching her. Amara hurries to put the lamp back, embarrassed. “Sorry.”

“No, I mean I designed it.” The slave laughs. “I don’t own any of them.” He is very good-looking, Amara realizes. Slim with dark hair and a friendly, open face. He looks nothing like Felix, she thinks. Then she wonders why the comparison would even matter to her. He walks over, takes the lamp back down from the shelf and turns it over. “That’s my mark,” he says, touching a symbol on the back, the Greek letter M. He has a Greek accent too. He almost sounds like he could have come from her hometown.

“Is Pallas Athene your goddess?” Amara asks, switching to Greek.

He is delighted. “Athenian?”

“No, I’m from Aphidnai.” She smiles back.

“The town with the beautiful Helen of Troy.”

“You’ve been there?” Amara stares at the potter’s slave, wondering who he might have been if they had met in their past lives. Did he ever go to her father when he was sick? Was he always enslaved?

“I spent a little time there when I was a child. Many years ago now. I’m from Athens. From Attica.”

Attica. So much in a single word. Pride in where she’s from, pain for what she’s lost. Home. It feels closer, suddenly, standing next to this stranger. “What happened?” she blurts out. “Why are you here?”

He looks startled. Slaves do not usually ask each other about the past without invitation. Nobody wants their grief dragged up unexpectedly into the light.