A shop selling assorted goods had been built against the corner between the wall and fountain base, though the place was empty at the moment. A jumble of junk was piled near it, a fire hazard if I ever saw one.
I opened the door beside the shop, finding a stairwell that went up into the tower. I smelled no smoke in this building, but I shouted a warning in case anyone above hadn’t realized fire might come their way.
No reply came. I was about to close the door and move to the next building when I heard a faint cry, one I recognized.
I was inside and up the stairs before I could form my next thought. The stairs were enclosed, winding up and up to the maintenance space above.
I climbed until I emerged into a small, enclosed room at the top, its only light what filtered through broken chinks in the wall. By that I could make out lead pipes that rose through the floor to disappear to the tank on the roof.
I also saw Cassia, bound and shoved into a corner. The dirty rag that had been over her mouth sagged from her chin—she’d managed to push it aside to call out when she’d heard me.
Rage, red and searing, streaked through me even as I dropped the bag of scrolls and moved to loosen the ropes that held her. Only the fact that he hadn’t killed her kept me from tearing apart the city to find him, so I could scrape his body over the streets until he died.
“No,” Cassia said as I rubbed her wrists, trying to erase the creases the rope had left. “He dragged me here to lure you. You have to go.”
“Not without you.” I eased the ropes from her ankles, she flinching as I brushed her lower leg, the most intimate place I’d ever touched.
He must have grabbed her when I was running back to the vigiles’s house, Livius’s guard concentrating on me. Even Regulus had deserted her.
I knew as soon as we started down the stairs that we were far too late. The door at the bottom of the steps slammed, its draft rushing past us. I heard a wooden bar slide over the door, and bootsteps dashing away.
I was strong, and I had momentum. I came off the stairs and slammed into the door, hoping to splinter either the bar or the hinges. The door, solidly constructed to keep people out of the water tower, held fast.
I rammed it a few more times, though I knew it would do no good. If I had tools, I could dismantle it, but the small vestibule at the bottom was empty.
If the killer thought we’d tamely sit and wait for him to return and pick us off, he was wrong.
Cassia had already returned to the top room, and I trudged up the stairs again, making myself move slowly to preserve my strength. The walls to either side of the steps were solid. The staircase wound through concrete that had not been faced, but it had hardened into thick walls that could not be penetrated.
Did he think he’d corner me on the stairs or in the room above and kill me, and then Cassia? Even without a weapon, I could best him.
I reached the tower room again. Cassia was busily rolling the ropes that had bound her into neat bundles. She was never one to waste what came her way.
“The door won’t break,” I said, out of breath.
Cassia nodded, her face pale in the half darkness. When the sun went down, it would be black in here.
The floor was strewn with chips of concrete that had flaked from the walls with time and weather. The pipes against the walls were solid under my touch, Roman engineering that would last many years.
A whiff of smoke, coming from below, brushed my nose. Cassia’s gaze met mine.
The man knew he wouldn’t have to fight at all to rid the world of my irritating existence. The tower was made of concrete, but it would draw like a chimney. The smoke alone would kill us.
I hastened back down the stairs. The door at the bottom was still firmly shut, but hot to the touch. He must have piled up debris I’d seen in front of it after he’d locked us in, and set that alight. The buildings to either side of us, built slap against the tower, might also catch, being more wood than stone. Stone, if it was hot enough, could burn, and who knew what sort of filler had been mixed into the concrete.
Up the stairs it was. The smoke would fill the stairwell and then the room at the top, cloaking us in its miasma. We’d fall, choking, and never wake.
On the other hand, the man had penned me up with the most resourceful woman in Rome. Already she’d moved to the pipes, tugging on them to discover if any were loose.
I didn’t need to tell her he’d started the fire—she’d have already reasoned that out, and we needed to conserve our breath.
My fury escalated as I shut the door against the smoke. Deliberately starting a fire in this city was nothing short of evil. I’d take him apart—there would be nothing left for Nero punish.
I stood in the middle of the room and let my gaze rove the walls from bottom to top. All buildings had a weakness, a point where they would collapse if the key support was removed.
Insulae fell down more often than they should. Many had less-than-solid foundations, or had been built on soft ground, or were poorly constructed—sometimes all three. This tower, built by the city instead of corrupt contractors, would be more solid, which was fine with me. I did not want the tower to fall, especially not with us inside it. I simply wanted a way out.
At the top of the walls, where the weight of the roof rested, cracks had formed. The chips of stone on the floor had come from small holes that had eroded around the pipes.
