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She closes the distance between us in two quick strides, then hits me,hard. The sudden force of it sends me careening into the wall, bits of plaster and pale-green paint flaking off from the impact.

“Don’t lie to me!” The pitch of her voice has me cowering.

It’s the wrong reaction. It always is.

Livia hits me again, this time on my upper arm. I bite my lower lip to keep from crying out.

“I saw you standing there, daydreaming like you had all the time in the world.”

Another hit, this one to the head.

I fold into myself, trying to become as small as possible. Tears well in my eyes, and more than the pain and terror, I hatethisreaction.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” I plead over and over again. Anything to make it stop.

She kicks me once, twice, in the abdomen.

I choke on my breath, and it takes me a couple inhalations to regain my voice. “Please,” I say hoarsely, “Mother?—”

I don’t mean to call out for my mother, to that warm, half-forgotten presence that hummed songs to lull me to sleep and brewed strange things in the pot that used to hang over our hearth. The woman who once must’ve held me as that mother in the courtyard held her child only moments ago.

Livia pauses, her foot pulled back. I can hear her heavy breaths and sense her acidic rage. I know she’s fighting to keep herself from hitting me again. It scares me that she is so full of fury.

Finally, she lowers her foot back to the ground and drops the unfinished veil on top of my huddled form.

“You won’t eat next until that’s finished,” she says, looming over me. “I don’t care if it takes you all day and all night, you will get it done.” To herself, she mutters, “Why I took you in is beyond me.”

Her words are nothing I haven’t already heard, but they still land like another blow to the head.

I know Livia once had a husband and daughter and that the two of them died in quick succession. She could’ve remarried and had more children; lots of Roman women do. Instead, she worked her business alone until she adopted me.

I cannot fathom why she made that fateful decision. Livia is hardly sentimental. Still, sometimes I catch her looking at me with a shine in her eyes, and I wonder if I remind her of the daughter she lost.

Whatever her reasons, every day feels like a held breath.

I rise slowly, my belly hurting where she kicked it. Sometimes even getting back up can anger her all over again.

Livia presses her lips together, her eyes flicking over me as she moves to the table. I can feel her anger and disgust thickening the air.

“Fix your hair,” she says sharply, gathering up the yarn and the loom weights, “and put something more modest on. We’re meeting with Septima Opimia later this morning, and she holds modesty above all else. She’ll pass on our business if she sees you looking like a harlot…”

Livia’s voice fades as pressure builds beneath my sternum. Strange, inexplicable pressure.

I place my hand over the source of it, taking in a shallow breath as the sensation crowds out all others, blunting even the throb of my flesh.

What is happening to me?

I’ve never felt anything like this…or have I?

Wasn’t there a moment long ago…?

Flames and smoke and dull, glassy eyes fill my mind, scaring off whatever wisp of a memory I was about to touch.

And still, the pressure is mounting, mounting?—

Livia’s frown lines deepen, but for an instant, she looks concerned, like she might’ve taken things too far.

“What is wrong with you?” she demands.