Caela rolled in her sleep, which left a talon not far from Aurelia's hand. She reached out to pull the remaining rope free from Caela's leg, but Caela awoke and snapped at her fingers. "Fine!" Aurelia said. "Then I won't help!"
I couldn't help but laugh, which only focused the heat of Aurelia's glare on me. In response, I stretched as far from the wall as the chain allowed and patted Caela instead, mostly to prove that I could.
"That griffin saved your life, you know," Aurelia said.
My first thought was how Aurelia could possibly know about our escape from the cave, and I fumbled around for a response.
But she added, "Felix had intended to put you in the arena tomorrow along with the other criminals, but now he'll need you to manage the griffin."
"I'm not a criminal."
"Yes, and you're not dangerous either, I already know."
A crack of thunder roared above us and I ducked. Now it was Aurelia's turn to laugh. "It's only noise."
"The lightning that goes with it isn't noise."
"We won't get hit by the lightning."
"Tell that to my father."
"Did he --?" She answered her own question. "Oh, that's awful."
When I remained silent, her eyes darted up to the window above my head, and she asked, "Ever been in the city?"
"No."
"Rome is the most amazing place in the world. I sometimes help Felix in the amphitheater. It holds more than fifty thousand Romans, and everyone can attend the games for free, even slaves."
"I won't be a slave forever."
She shrugged that off. "Then what would you do? I doubt you have any skills to make a life in Rome."
"Maybe I'll get a job riding in caravans, guarding things that aren't dangerous." A grin tugged at my mouth. "How hard could that be?"
Her eyes narrowed. "I'm paid to control that griffin! There's not enough gold in the empire to make guarding you worthwhile."
She probably didn't know how much gold was piled in Caesar's cave. If I was more trouble to her than all of that, then that was a compliment.
"Why do you need the pay?" I asked. "Doesn't your family take care of you? They must have given you that crepundia."
"My father gave me the crepundia when I was a baby," Aurelia said. "Before I was exposed."
"Oh." I knew about that. Several of the slaves in the mine had come to us through exposure. If the father of a household didn't want a child, he would put it out on the streets. Maybe the child would be picked up by a loving family willing to adopt it. Very often slavers would take it. I wasn't sure what had happened to Aurelia, but if she still had that crepundia, I knew there must be a part of her hoping to learn who her family once was, and trying to earn her way back to them.
"Sorry," I muttered.
"Just stop talking," she said.
That was fine by me. Caela shook her head as if I should've known better. But what did she know about girls? She'd been in a cave her whole life. Of c
ourse, so had I.
I did know one thing for certain, which was that I wanted nothing else to do with Aurelia. Felix had been kind when he compared her to a rabid bear. Given the choice of a traveling companion, I'd have preferred the bear. Because Aurelia and I would never, never become friends.
The storm passed quickly and it wasn't long afterward that the wagon stopped too and our doors opened. I put a hand on Caela to steady her from jumping out at any strangers, but it was only Felix who appeared.
"We're at the gates of Rome," he said. "It should be safe to come out now, if you want to enter the city with me."