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A n urgent knocking came at the door to Lucretia’s office. Dihya had just stepped out to fetch some lunch for them both—from Caeso’s stall, of course—so Lucretia went to the front room to answer the door.

Felix’s secretary, Siro, waited outside, hands clasped around a wax tablet. A distraught expression marred his usually reserved countenance. “Forgive me, lady, I didn’t know who else to come to.”

Lucretia let him in, unease swirling in her stomach. “What is it?”

Siro swallowed hard. “It seems Felix has been kidnapped by pirates.” He kept talking, but the words muddled together in Lucretia’s mind.

Pirates. Kidnapped . “Marcus,” she managed in a strangled gasp. “Is my son—”

“He writes that Marcus is safe,” Siro said hastily, holding out the tablet. “I’m not sure exactly what happened, but—”

“Give me that.” Lucretia snatched the wax tablet and read over the few lines inscribed in Felix’s handwriting. Marcus is safe, should be back in Ostia any day now. She read that line three times, burning the words into her mind.

Marcus is safe . The jolt of terror left her body in a rush. She leaned against Dihya’s desk, legs trembling. Marcus is safe .

She let out a shaky breath, handing the tablet back. “If this isn’t about my son, then why have you come?” Marcus may be safe, but Felix… She shrugged off her worry. Felix was no longer her concern.

Siro twisted his fingers together over the tablet.

“It’s the ransom they’re demanding. Felix has about half of it in his coffers at home.

But the rest…it’s secured at the temple bank.

The priests won’t let me touch it. Even after I tried to explain what had happened.

I showed them the letter. They wouldn’t relent! ” Anxiety tightened his voice.

Lucretia crossed her arms over her chest, affecting nonchalance despite the unease twisting in her stomach at the thought of Felix’s predicament. “So what am I meant to do about it?”

“Well, I thought you might be able to lend the money,” Siro said, meeting her eyes with a beseeching gaze. “Felix would repay it in full immediately upon his release, of course.”

She pressed her lips together. “You must know what has transpired between me and Felix.”

Siro glanced away. “I have pieced together certain details. My employer’s private affairs are not my business, of course.”

Lucretia took a step toward him, abandoning the support of the desk. “I think they were your business at one point. You must have helped him dig into my secrets. Did you investigate my guardian for him?”

Siro rotated the wax tablet in his hands. “I followed my employer’s instructions, lady.”

“So you know he was trying to ruin me. To destroy everything I’ve worked for, to discredit everything I’ve done, purely because I happen to be a woman.” She lifted her chin. “And you think I would spend a single denarius for his benefit?”

“Please, lady,” Siro said. “His freedom, perhaps even his life, is at stake!”

“He was willing to gamble my freedom for his own greed,” she snapped. “Perhaps he deserves to feel what it’s like to lose everything.”

“You cannot truly plan to abandon him to such a fate,” Siro insisted. “Whatever he planned to do to you, it did not amount to slavery or death.”

Siro had a point there. Could she live with herself if she condemned him to such a fate? She thought of Marcus. He cared for Felix; he would want her to do what she could to save him.

“How much is the ransom?” The number must have been in the letter, but she’d been so consumed with worry for Marcus that it escaped her.

“Fifteen talents,” Siro replied.

“Fifteen!” she gasped. “Does Felix have that much money?”

Siro nodded. “As I said, split between his home and the temple bank.”

“Fifteen talents,” she repeated in awe. It was a titanic sum. Felix was wealthier than she’d realized.

“He has seven at home. I need eight to fulfill the ransom.”

She let out a short, humorless laugh. “Well, I don’t have eight talents.

” No matter if Felix deserved her help or not, she didn’t have the power to save him.

The realization should have soothed her; she no longer had to decide if he was worthy of saving.

Instead, it sent a strange pang through her, thorny with emotions she couldn’t name.

Siro’s face fell. “I see. I-I suppose I’ll have to think of something else.” He turned to leave, shoulders slumped.

“How long did they give you?” Lucretia asked. “Maybe…maybe I can think of something.” It was only for Marcus’s sake that she would try.

He turned back as he opened the door. “The pirate who delivered the message gave me a deadline of sunset the day after tomorrow.”

Not much time . “All right.”

Siro left.

Kidnapped by pirates. The reality of the situation sunk in. And somehow Marcus hadn’t also been caught? No doubt her son would have a story to tell.

A fresh wave of worry spiraled in her stomach.

Felix had said Marcus was safe, but she couldn’t truly relax until he was back here, until she could see with her own eyes that he was well.

Hopefully, Felix was right that Marcus would return any day now, and she could find out the truth of what had befallen them.

Dihya returned, carrying a basket laden with baked delicacies that Lucretia now had no stomach for. “Hello, I picked up some—” Dihya stopped short as she caught sight of Lucretia’s face. “What’s happened?”

In a few words, Lucretia told her of Siro’s visit and the news he’d brought.

“Well,” Dihya said, eyes wide. “I suppose that’s a certain kind of justice for what Felix did, isn’t it?”

“What should I do?” Lucretia asked. “Does he even deserve my help?”

Dihya considered for a moment. “That fate is not one I would condemn anyone to lightly. Even my enemy. Even Felix.”

Lucretia nodded. Dihya, as a freedwoman, knew the painful reality of what Felix faced far better than Lucretia did.

“And, not that I would ever defend him, but to be fair, he didn’t actually do anything to you,” Dihya continued. “He thought about it—he planned it—but he didn’t go through with it, did he?”

“You’re right,” Lucretia admitted. Perhaps she had been judging him too harshly. “He thought better of it in the end.”

Dihya tapped her fingers on her desk, considering. “If the situation was reversed, what would Felix do for you?”

The answer struck Lucretia like a blow to the chest. If she had been kidnapped by pirates, she knew with bone-deep certainty that Felix would not rest until she was safe. He would scour the Mediterranean to bring her home. He would use every last resource at his disposal to rescue her.

Her eyes filled with tears. “He would do whatever it took,” she whispered through a tight throat.

“So maybe you have your answer,” Dihya murmured.

Lucretia took in a shaky breath. “I know.”

She had two days to raise eight talents of silver, or Felix would be lost forever.

Lucretia spent a sleepless night worrying for Marcus. Her son was on a ship with strangers, traversing the open sea. She would have given anything—her ships, her house, even her life—to have him back safe. But she was powerless.

She forced herself to look at the situation with a shred of rationality.

Marcus might be separated from Felix, but he must be on the same ship he’d departed on, with the same crew.

Not strangers. He was no longer a child, but nearly a man.

He could look after himself to a reasonable extent.

With luck, his ship might be approaching the harbor even now.

At first light, she’d go to the harbor, and she wouldn’t leave until she found him.

She’d come back every day until he returned.

When she managed to untangle herself from her worries about Marcus, her mind turned to conjuring a plan to save Felix. She knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep until Marcus was back with her, so she might as well use the time to think of something.

By morning, Lucretia had a fragment of an idea. Or rather, she knew exactly what she could do to save Felix. She only had a fragment of confidence that it wasn’t utter idiocy.

She was just preparing to set out for the harbor to await Marcus’s return when her son stepped through the front door. Relief choked her, cutting off her breath and filling her eyes with tears.

She ran to him and swept him into a tight embrace. “Oh, Marcus! I heard what happened to Felix—are you all right?” She pulled back from the embrace to look him over anxiously. He didn’t look to be injured, and he had even acquired a golden tan over his skin.

“You know about the pirates?” Marcus demanded. “How did you find out?”

“They issued a ransom demand to Siro,” Lucretia said, stroking his cheek to reassure herself that he was real, that he was truly standing before her, alive and unharmed. “They must be anchored somewhere close by.”

“So he’ll be saved!” A relieved smile lit Marcus’s face. “I-I didn’t know what would happen to him after they took him. I thought they might have killed him!”

“That would have been very wasteful.” Lucretia led Marcus to a bench on the edge of the atrium, where they could sit and talk. “Pirates want either money or slaves, which they can turn into money. Now, will you tell me what happened?”

Marcus relayed the story of how they had boarded a ship supposedly carrying a cargo of Serican silk. “It was all my fault,” he said, voice tight with anguish. “I insisted we go aboard. If I hadn’t been so stupid , none of this would have happened!”

She put an arm around him and drew him against her. “You had no way of knowing, sweetheart. What happened after you went aboard?”

“Well, we were waiting on deck for the crowds to thin. Felix started to get nervous about something. He said we should leave, but I didn’t know why. And then before we could get off the ship, the gangplank was gone and we were setting sail.”

Lucretia inhaled a shocked breath. “And then?”

Marcus closed his eyes, as if recalling the exact moment. “Felix dragged me over to the side of the ship and threw me overboard.”

“He did what?”

“We weren’t far from the dock,” Marcus explained. “It was easy to swim. I thought he was coming after me, but I looked back and I couldn’t see him anywhere. They must have caught him.”

“Blessed Orbona,” she murmured, sending a fervent prayer of thanks to the goddess of children for safeguarding her son. She added one to Neptune for good measure, since the incident had occurred at sea.

“But he’s going to be all right, isn’t he?” Marcus asked. “The ransom will be paid, and he’ll be freed?”

Lucretia hesitated. “There is an issue with the ransom. Felix has the money, but about half of it is in the temple bank, and no one but him can withdraw it.”

Marcus’s eyes widened. “We have to do something! He wouldn’t have been there if it wasn’t for me. And he saved me.”

Lucretia nodded. The pieces of her plan fell into place in her mind.

After hearing Marcus’s story, she saw that Felix had sacrificed himself to save her son.

Thus, Lucretia would do whatever it took to free him, even if it might cost her everything.

“I have a plan.” She gave Marcus one more hug and kiss on the cheek.

“You go to the kitchens and get some food in you. You must be hungry and tired after such a journey. I must pay a visit to Publius Calpurnius Lentulus.”