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What…are you?I say carefully.

What do you mean, “What am I?”Memnon asks, sounding affronted.I’m a man.

I’m not suremanis the right word to describe this voice. He doesn’t sound like a full-grown adult. More like a teenage boy.

So you’re real and not just a part of my own mind?

I’m real, he says. He must sense my deep mistrust because he adds,I’m staring up at the stars right now. I can see Orion the hunter.

Orion the hunter. That’s one of the few constellations I can easily recognize.

I cannot remember the last time I stopped and looked up at the stars, and right now, when my muscles feel leaden from a long day of work, I don’t want to move.

But curiosity spurs me to my feet, so I set the veil aside and pad to the doorway of my room. Livia’s bedroom is to my left, and I pause, listening to her soft snores before I decide to tiptoe across our apartment and slip out of the house. I have to shuffle down to the courtyard to get a good view of the sky. Tonight is cloudy, but I can make out several scattered stars. Among them are the three even dots of Orion’s belt.

The sight of the constellation makes my stomach clench.

So Memnon’s telling the truth.

Girl?he says as though I beckoned him.Are you still there?

Don’t call me that, I say absently as I head back up the stairs and inside. I rub my arms against the chill.

WhatshouldI call you?

My throat tightens as I slip into my room and pick up the veil once more. I resettle myself on the ground next to my lamp and resume stitching, ignoring the painful ache in my belly.

Instead of answering him, I say,So you can see the night sky. I’m sure all sorts of beings can see the sky.How do I know you’re an actual person and not some vengeful spirit or a capricious god?

I could ask you the same thing, he says.

I am thinking over that logic when he again asks,What is your name?

Do you truly not know?I ask, once more evading the question.I thought you’ve been hearing my thoughts for years.

You’ve spoken many names in your thoughts, he says,names that are already foreign and difficult to remember, and I have not been able to figure out if any of them are yours.

His admission sparks a curiosity in me. I know he’s not Roman. The language he spoke is coarse yet rolling, the sounds guttural. But there are a lot of cultures with guttural-sounding languages, and I don’t have a good enough ear to know which he might belong to.

Are you going to tell me your name?he prods.

I hesitate. People don’t usually ask me for my name. Formally, it’s Livia the Younger, my adoptive mother being Livia the Elder. Usually, if I’m being referred to as something other thanGirl, it’s Livia.

However, I don’t want to give Memnon this blighted name I must answer to.

What would you like to call me?I say instead.

There’s a moment of silence.That seems like the sort of response a vengeful spirit would give, Memnon says.

I press my lips together to keep from smiling. That’s true enough.

I don’t like my name, I admit.

Then give me a different one, he says, unfazed by my answer.One that you do like.

I pause my stitching and stare absently off into the darkness. My mind races, my heart beating frantically.

I already know the name I would like to give him, and that is the name my Northern parents gave me. But—and it’s one of my deepest shames—I cannot remember what that nameis. The only other person who might have once known it is Livia, though if she ever learned it, she must’ve discarded it as quickly as she came upon it.