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“By the Goddess, I don’t know,” I whispered. “It sounds like the path must have something to do with the movement of the moon in the sky. I could use the orrery, which can predict the cycles of the moon, but I don’t think it will do any good. The moon doesn’t follow a single course through the sky. It appears in a different place each night. I don’t see how that helps us.”

“Perhaps the sanctuary changes its place each day through magical means?” she asked.

“My tutor, Cassius, would remind us that metaphysics governs our world, not magic.”

She rolled over on her back and pulled the blanket up to her chin. “How did you come to learn so much about these things?”

“Anyone can learn these things with access to books and a teacher.”

After a few moments of silence, she spoke again. “Comitissa Klaudia, what type of woman is she? She’s a few years older than we are, but not married?”

“No. She wants to live life according to her own wishes, which isn’t easy for a woman.”

“And the Archidux? What kind of man is he?”

A strange lump formed in my throat and made it difficult to answer. By the time I swallowed it down and whispered, “He’s the most remarkable person I’ve ever met,” gentle snores were already coming from her side of the bed.

THE NEXT MORNING, despite Pollux’s words of caution, Ismene and I went out to explore the village. The rain had lessened overnight to a light drizzle. We pulled up the hoods of our cloaks, wrapped our pallae around our faces, and stepped into the muddy square. Fortunately, no one so much as looked in our direction. It seemed that with a location only a few miles from a crossroads, visitors weren’t rare enough to rouse a lot of interest.

We peered into the forge and saw nothing but a sweating blacksmith at his bellows. In the communal bakery, women clustered around a shared oven, checking loaves of bread. They glanced up curiously as we looked in, but apart from the heavy smell of yeast, there was nothing remarkable about the place at all. We also investigated the butcher, whose hut at a corner of the square drew a cloud of buzzing flies, but the smell of blood and worse sent us right back out again.

“I can’t imagine the clue to our sanctuary is among those carcasses,” Ismene said with her hand pressed over her mouth and nose.

After only a few minutes we had circumnavigated the entire square and found nothing that might lead us to a hidden refuge for Corlivo women. We sat down on a fallen tree and looked around. What should our next step be? We had so little time. We could expand our search beyond the village center, out into the countryside, but it would take far too long. Pollux wouldn’t be content to stay here more than another day.

There was only one other structure in view: a small, single-story building with a thatched roof. It looked like a simple house, and we were debating whether there was any point in knocking on the front door when it opened, and a cluster of six young boys burst out, squealing with laughter. One of them clutched a stylus and a wax tablet, and from this we concluded that it was a small school.

“I hadn’t thought that this small village would have a school,” Ismene said. “And look, are those girls?”

To our surprise, two little girls ran out of the schoolroom, braids flying. They held hands and whispered together, looking down at the grass as though intent upon an errand or game known only to them.

In an instant I was back in my first few days at the Schola Morum, when everything was new and frightening. Kyra and I had found each other, and from the moment we first stacked pebbles together in the little garden inside the school’s thick walls, we had been inseparable. Through the long years of our schooling, the selection process that sent us both to Casa Caligine, and the days leading up to the bidding, we had been each other’s comfort and counsel. A wave of sadness washed over me.

“What are you thinking about?” Ismene rested her chin on her hands, elbows propped on her knees, watching the children play. She glanced sideways at me above the palla that covered most of her face.

“These girls are poor,” I said, “but I think they have more freedom than we did.”

She shrugged. “That’s not much of a measure. I wonder how long they’ll get to stay in school.”

The girls helped each other climb onto a tree stump near the wall of the school.

“When you were at school, did you ever learn anything about the history of Corlivo?” I asked.

“The history of it? No. What do you mean?”

“I just wonder why, in all our years at the Schola Morum, we were never taught the history of the city or why the pleasure houses are there. Corlivo is a unique place.”

She frowned, considering this. “Does it matter?”

“Shouldn’t it?”

A bell clanged, and the children, disappointed expressions on their faces, trudged back toward the school. I watched the departing figures of the little girls with a strange affection.

Ismene stood up and brushed the dirt off her dress. “Pollux will be worried. Should we look into the schoolroom and then return to the inn?”

“What’s the use? I can’t imagine there’s a sanctuary hidden inside it.” I got to my feet also. “I think our time would be better spent trying to figure out what a path marked by the moon could mean. Let’s go back and hope that inspiration strikes us this afternoon.”

BUT THE DAY faded into evening and no new ideas occurred to us. Pollux grew increasingly anxious. He paced and went through a series of stretches, as though he were limbering his body for a chariot race. He hummed a repetitive little tune under his breath and went outside at frequent intervals to check the road.