Fabia tears into the bread first, demolishing it in a few mouthfuls. It’s not clear how she manages to chew so fast without choking. Amara is never going to be able to keep up. “I always liked this cell best,” Fabia says, worrying away at an olive, extracting every last scrap of green flesh with her teeth. “It used to be Mola’s. She’s long dead now. That there, in the corner, is where I used to draw for Paris.”

Amara follows the line of her pointing finger to the very bottom of the wall. She squints and the crude scratch marks take on the shape of a dog. “It must have been hard, raising a child here.”

“My little boy,” Fabia says. “He didn’t always hate me. Everyone made such a fuss of him when he was small. All the other girls, they doted on him.” She discards another olive. “But the old pimp, the master here before Felix, he rented him out to work in the kitchens across the way when he was four.” Fabia pauses, contemplating the remaining bread and cheese on her knee. “I wish he’d sold him. But he never did. My boy was too pretty.” She gives in to hunger, gobbling down the last scraps of food, sucking her fingers and wiping them on her knees. “That’s what I tell Cressa. It’s better if they’re sold. Then you can imagine things turned out well for them. Better the heartbreak now, than later.”

Amara has barely said a word but still has a small pile of food left. She eats it as fast as she can, conscious of Fabia watching. “Is this the only brothel you worked in?” she mumbles through a mouthful of cheese.

“I suppose,” Fabia replies. “I started as a house slave. Had two little babies for the master, not that he cared, the ungrateful shit. Two little girls I never got to see grow up. After the second child, I thought he’d let me marry another slave in the household, the odd-job man. I quite liked him. He was kind, anyway. But then he died, and the master rented me out. It was only guests, family members, that sort of thing. But once they do that, rent you out I mean, you know they’ll sell you on.” Amara thinks of her time as a slave in Chremes’ household. It does not cheer her to see parallels between her past and that of the destitute old woman beside her. “You didn’t start life as a slave, did you?” Fabia asks, perhaps sensing her discomfort. “I can always tell.”

“How can you tell?”

“You still act like you matter.”