"Then you shall be," I said. "When my family leaves Rome, we want you to come with us."
"You didn't feel that way after the amphitheater. You asked Aurelia to come with you, but not me."
"Well, she's prettier than you are." Then I cocked my head and grinned. "Also, I remember being angry about your father nearly getting me killed."
Crispus chuckled, and then quickly became serious again. "You always hated the chains they made you wear as a slave. I understand how they must have felt. Because sometimes, I think I'm in chains too. Invisible ones made of duty and honor."
"I wear different chains now," I said. "Mine is a scar on my shoulder that does magic, and a key to an amulet that I do not have." I sighed and looked over at Crispus. "Maybe we're more alike than we realized."
"We're not alike at all," Crispus said. "I will never have your strength or courage."
"I'm nothing special," I said, shaking my head. "My whole life bears the truth of that!"
Crispus only smiled. "Maybe your whole life was bringing you to this moment. I believe the most amazing things are still ahead."
And despite my worries, I suddenly realized that I was smiling back.
After a while, Crispus walked me to my room. He didn't need to -- while I had never claimed to be the cleverest person in Rome, I had somehow managed to remember the twelve steps it took to get there from the dining area. And I actually wished he wouldn't have come with me. I wasn't going to be here for long.
As we walked, I asked him, "Do you know where Aurelia might be right now? My sister is with her."
"I haven't seen her since the circus." Crispus shrugged. "Besides, Aurelia never tells me anything."
I liked hearing that. She rarely told me much about herself either, but there were some times when she had lowered her guard with me. The more I understood about the person she really was, the more I wanted to know her better.
"I thought you two were good friends," I said.
"We are," Crispus said quickly. "Or at least, I like her well enough. I'm just not sure what she thinks of me."
"I thought it was all arranged that ... sometime soon ... you and she would
--"
"That we would marry?" Crispus snorted a hard laugh. "My father tried to settle that as part of her inheritance, just as a way of making up for his fault in her father's death. But Aurelia hasn't agreed to it yet." He glanced sideways at me. "You know why that is, I'm sure."
"I don't," I said, which was a lie. When we were down in the sewers, Aurelia had all but begged me to offer marriage to her. Maybe she thought I was ignoring her request because we were still young, but that wasn't it at all. No matter how I tried to wiggle free of my situation, there was little hope for my future. The people who wanted to control me, or even to destroy me, were powerful, and the list of their names was steadily growing. If something happened to me, I already had to worry about what would happen to Livia, and now my mother. I wouldn't bind Aurelia to my fate as well.
"Would you want to marry her, if she agrees to it?" I asked. "Or was this all your father's doing?"
"She's a beautiful girl," Crispus said. "That is, if you can get her to put down her bow long enough to dress like a proper girl."
I didn't need her to be a proper girl, and knew for a fact that I was in no position to judge what a proper girl was anyway. If anyone misunderstood the rules of proper behavior, it was me, not her. But maybe it was our shared ignorance about good behavior that made Aurelia and me friends. I wished I could know how she truly felt about me. Was I simply a convenient way for her to keep her inheritance? Or were we more than that?
"Wherever she is right now, I'm sure your sister is safe with Aurelia," Crispus said. "And until this is over, they're both better off far away from you."
But this would never be over. I was beginning to accept that, which was my answer to any questions about a future with Aurelia. Our problem had nothing to do with either of our feelings. The fact was that she was better off remaining as far from me as possible, not just now, but always. That was true for Livia too, and my mother, and Crispus. In fact, if it could be done, I'd be smart to stay away from myself, and let someone else entirely take over the disaster of my life. But I figured that for better or worse, I was stuck with the consequences of everything I'd ever done wrong. Of everything I was still doing wrong.
I waited in my room for an hour, until the household quieted down for the night and to be sure Crispus and Valerius were asleep. Then I crept outside, much as I had done when sneaking out of the villa before, except this time I headed back down to the fields.
The Malice was hidden somewhere on Valerius's property. That was obvious, not only in his weak denials of knowing where it was, but also in the fact that I could hear the Mistress -- buried with the Malice -- whenever I was there.
It took a while to make my way down to the fields in the darkness. The skies were darker than usual tonight, probably threatening rain, and that alone made me nervous. In addition to the lightning that killed my father, I had created a lightning storm when I fought Radulf in the amphitheater -- Radulf said that was proof that I had the key to the Malice, in fact. Lightning was no friend to me, and I didn't want to be out here if a storm arose.
My plan was to get the bulla from Callistus, assuming he was still where I had left him at the far edge of the fields. Then I would use its power to talk to the wolf I had seen earlier. If the Malice was hidden here, then the wolf probably belonged to the god Mars. He would show me the door. Although I had no key, I did have the bulla, which was capable of great magic. If I focused it on a single lock, using the full force of my powers, I should be able to get it open. Of course, any explosion large enough to destroy something sealed off by the gods was likely to awaken half of Rome, as well as every Praetor in the city, and that would be bad enough. It also might awaken the Mistress, which Valerius had begged me not to do.
So admittedly, my plan wasn't perfect. But I had no choice. Morning was coming fast, and I had nothing to offer the Praetors in trade for my mother.
Once I got to the end of the path from Valerius's villa, I hesitated in the shadows. Valerius had warned that the Praetors watched this property. So they also suspected the Malice was hidden here.