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“We can come up with a plan and be careful, as we were today.”

“What plan?” Sebastianus said. “It’s just tossing the dice, trusting this girl, hoping it’s all right.”

I gripped the edge of the chair. “You couldn’t possibly understand how much it means to me to know something of my mother. You were raised by yours.”

“Yes, and I watched Jovinian destroy her. I would not have him do the same to you.” He stood up abruptly and stalked out of the courtyard in a vortex of anger that would have made Gurgexenes proud.

A lengthy silence followed his departure. Don polished his short knife quietly with a clean white cloth.

“My goodness,” Cornelia said.

Don glanced up from the knife. “You’re asking a lot of him, Anna.”

I looked at the now-empty chair beside me. “Am I? For my whole life, I have longed to know something about the woman who bore me. Is it so much to want an answer to that question?”

“Of course I can appreciate why you’d want to know the woman who gave birth to you,” Don said. “I’d jump at the chance to learn something about my own parents. I was a lost, lonely boy. But is this the only way? It’s so risky.”

“You and Seb have done all kinds of risky things. I’ve read about them in his journals and papers. Isn’t that how an explorer makes discoveries, by being willing to take risks?”

Don tucked his knife back into its leather sheath. “More often, you need to weigh one risk against another. Regardless of the outcome, what will the cost be? You find that some discoveries aren’t worth it.”

“But surely, some are.”

He shook his head. “I’ve known Seb for years, and I’ve never seen him stay in one place for more than a couple of weeks, let alone show affection to a woman the way he’s shown it to you. Is someone who abandoned you twenty years ago worth more than someone who cares deeply about you right here and now?”

Cassius and Cornelia exchanged a glance.

“Just stay here with us,” Cornelia said softly. “Stay here where it’s safe and let us look after you.”

But I could not.

xx

SEBASTIANUS REMAINED HOLED UP IN HIS STUDY FOR the afternoon, but in the evening, I found him walking in his fragrant orchard as the sun set. The light made long shadows of the trees, heavy with their late-summer bounty: figs, pears, apples, plums. Many of the branches were low enough to touch or sit on. There were very few trees in Corlivo, so I had never climbed one as a child, but I could understand the appeal now, seeing these sturdy, laden boughs.

He heard me coming and turned, leaning on his stick. It made me think of the first time I had ever seen him, standing on the terrace at Casa Caligine. He had been a stranger to me then, and now he was—what? A great deal more.

“I know you don’t want me to do this,” I said, “but it’s the only clue I have.”

He took my hand. “I worry that you still underestimate the lies people are capable of telling.”

“I can’t live my life afraid of making a mistake. I’ve learned that from you.”

Stars shone faintly above us, despite the red glow of the sunset. “Look, there’s the Great Wolf, and there is the Mother. Do you remember when we stood together on the balcony at Casa Caligine and looked at these same constellations?”

“Of course I remember.” He pulled me to him and wrapped his burly arms around me, leaning back against a tree trunk for balance. He kissed the curve of my neck. “Please, I can’t bear to lose you to him.”

“Seb, you won’t lose me. He will not even be there.”

He released me, shaking his head. “He has eyes everywhere. He’s got his advisers, the senate, the entire city in a vise grip.”

Some vibrant plums hanging from a low branch caught my eye.

As I picked through them and chose one, he shifted his stick from hand to hand absentmindedly. “I’m not sure I’ve ever felt as much fear as I did when I learned you had been snared in the raid on the old quarter.”

I picked a plum and bit into its soft flesh. “Can that be true, given all the difficult situations you have encountered on your travels?”

He put out a hand and tugged the fruit from my fingers. He took a bite also. “I’ve never cared enough about anything before to be truly afraid.” He held the plum out to me.