The following morning, Amara checks on Britannica, who has been living in Cressa’s old cell. She finds her shadowboxing in the cramped, foul-smelling space and, honoring her promise to the dead Cressa, persuades her to come to the well.

At the well, two men block the pump, and one gropes Amara. Before she can respond, Britannica seizes the man, lifts him by the collar, and twists his arm until he cries out. Both men flee. Then, unexpectedly, Britannica utters a single Latin word meaning “savage.” Amara is stunned to discover that Britannica can both speak and understand Latin. When Amara mentions Cressa’s name, Britannica stiffens, dumps the full bucket into Amara’s arms, and strides back to the Wolf Den alone.

Victoria emerges and is surprised to that hear Britannica spoke, though she doesn’t think it matters. At the mention of Cressa’s name, Victoria suggests that they visit her grave. They stop at The Sparrow, where Nicandrus quietly gives them wine for the offering at no charge. They walk out through the Nola gate, past the grand tombs of the wealthy, and continue until the road narrows into the section set aside for people without money—a disordered stretch of mounds and broken amphorae. Victoria finds Cressa’s grave, a small slab with a pile of stones at its base, and pours the wine over it.

A man then approaches them, demanding sex. When they refuse, he becomes aggressive, pursues them as they try to leave, and traps them on a deserted path through the necropolis. He throws Amara to the ground, straddles her with a knife, tells her that Simo has discovered what Felix did, and says that the attack is for Drauca. Victoria grabs Cressa’s clay pot and drives a shard into the man’s neck. He dies from the wound, and the two women run.

Amara and Victoria hide among the tombs to recover. Victoria is shaking and horrified that she has killed someone. Amara, calm and methodical, presses mud over the bloodstains on their cloaks and insists that no one will find the body. Victoria is adamant that they must warn Felix. Back at the Wolf Den, they force their way past Paris into Felix’s rooms.

As Victoria sobs through the account, Felix holds and comforts her with a tenderness that Amara has never witnessed in him. The contrast with how he has treated Amara—even after Cressa’s death—leaves her with a pain she cannot name. Felix coolly questions Amara about the details, confirms that the attacker is dead, and learns that there are no witnesses. He orders both women to tell no one, not even Dido, and promises to handle Simo. When Amara snaps at Victoria for crying over a man who tried to kill them, Felix shoves Amara, calls her a “bitch,” and tells her to be grateful. She retreats to the storeroom, where her composure finally cracks and terror floods back in. She forces herself to suppress it.

The next day, Amara moves through the world in a daze, unable to connect with Dido at the baths. She urges Dido to stay close to Britannica, framing it as concern for Cressa’s memory but really hoping that Britannica will keep Dido safe. She can’t bring herself to solicit clients.

That evening, Philos notices her distress when he collects her. At a safe distance from the Wolf Den, he offers her his arm and confides that he never felt safe when he was young—later clarifying that it was Rufus’s grandfather, not his father, Hortensius, who preyed on him. He then warns her that Rufus is bringing Hortensius to meet her tonight as a surprise, and he advises her to be careful, saying that he wouldn’t leave his own wife alone with the man.

At Drusilla’s house, Amara meets Hortensius, finding him calculating where Rufus is guileless. He interrogates her background, referencing her past work for Admiral Pliny, dismisses her account of her education as implausible for a doctor’s daughter, and treats her history as entertainment. Drusilla intervenes with music; Amara sings Sappho’s “Hymn to Aphrodite” while Drusilla plays the harp. Hortensius approves of her but dismisses the idea of renting a house, suggesting that she simply join the family household as an enslaved person. As he’s leaving, he runs his hands down her body, appraising her like property and deeming her a sound investment. Drusilla, once he has gone, pinches Amara’s arm and urges her to fight for her freedom using every means available.

Alone with Rufus, Amara confronts him. He admits that his father opposes freeing her, that freeing her would require attaching the family name to her, and that he may not be able to defy Hortensius. He promises that if she remains enslaved to him, he will never let anyone hurt her.

Felix summons Amara and Victoria to his bedroom and reveals his plan to eliminate Simo. He orders them to go veiled to the street opposite Simo’s bar and act as decoys, picking up men to draw attention away while his associates handle the attack. Paris will keep watch nearby. Amara protests that they will have no real protection, but Felix shouts her down, and Victoria persuades her to comply. Felix then dismisses Amara so that he can be alone with Victoria.

In the corridor, Paris brags to Amara about being chosen for the job. Amara privately suspects that Felix chose him partly because he’s more expendable and flatters him to keep him cooperative.

After dark, the two women make their way to Simo’s bar, their faces veiled as Felix instructed. They shelter in an archway across the road and expose their legs to attract customers. Several drunk men approach. Amid the gathering crowd, Amara recognizes a man with a white scar whom she’s seen with Felix before. While the men press against the women, the scarred man uses the distraction to set the bar’s timber frame alight with a torch and flings a burning lamp through the door before running off. The chaos scatters the men.

Victoria insists that they stay to confirm that Paris has done his part. From the archway, they watch Simo stagger out of the smoke, bent double. Paris moves in alongside Felix’s other associate as if helping him; Simo then collapses in Paris’s arms, dead. The bar’s roof collapses in a roar of flame. With the street in chaos, Amara and Victoria slip back into the darkness.

In the days following the fire, Felix rewards Victoria by moving her into his room and treating her like a favored companion while largely ignoring Amara. Amara fluently lies to the other women, claiming that she and Victoria had been hired to entertain clients at a bar. She feigns shock when news of Simo’s death reaches the Wolf Den. By night, fear keeps her from sleeping; she can hear Paris crying in the dark, though he refuses to speak of it in the morning.

On the third day, Felix abruptly summons Amara to his study. When Amara arrives, Victoria is sitting on his lap. He tips Victoria off his knee and sends her back to the Wolf Den without ceremony. Amara sees the moment break something in Victoria. Left alone with Amara, Felix says that he missed her and restores her to her old task of managing his accounts.

On the eve of the Saturnalia, Rufus still hasn’t set a date to buy Amara. The she-wolves gather at The Sparrow to plan their gift exchange. Amara and Dido then go shopping. They buy a gladiator-blood amulet for Britannica and cheaper items for Victoria and Beronice. On the way back, Dido tries to reassure Amara about Rufus. Amara, suddenly worried that leaving will strand Dido with no way to reach her, takes Dido across town to show her the rented house.

Philos lets them in and is overseeing furniture deliveries. Another enslaved man, Vitalio, storms past and mutters that they will see how long this one lasts. Pressed for an explanation, Philos reluctantly reveals that Rufus was previously involved with Faustilla, Vitalio’s daughter and a serving girl in the household. From Philos’s evasiveness when she presses further, Amara understands that Rufus is still sleeping with Faustilla. She’s left with a bitter clarity about the limits of what an enslaver’s love can mean for an enslaved person.

On the Saturnalia—when it’s traditional for enslavers to serve the people they enslave—Felix’s household gathers in his study. Thraso and Gallus serve wine and sweet buns—a deviation from tradition, as Felix should be the one serving—while Felix distributes a denarius to everyone. The women exchange gifts; Britannica receives the gladiator-blood amulet and, without a word, tucks it away and gives Amara and Dido a single nod of acknowledgment. The men have forgotten Paris; Felix tells Thraso to give him wine, saying he earned it. Gallus presents Beronice with an expensive cameo pendant—far more generous than anyone expected—and she declares her love. Felix gives Victoria a string of cheap wooden beads; she’s grateful to have been singled out at all, unaware that her friends pity her for it.

The household walks to the Forum. In the crowd, Menander finds Amara and gives her a hand-crafted clay lamp glazed in green and engraved with a likeness of Helen of Troy, the statue from her hometown. She is deeply moved and embraces him. Dido’s tugs her arm to signal danger—Rufus has seen them.

Rufus approaches furiously. Amara makes a cold, rapid calculation and denies knowing Menander entirely, calling him a nobody who admired her face. As she offers the lamp back, it slips and shatters at Menander’s feet. The destruction of his gift visibly ends whatever remained between them. Rufus pays Menander for the broken lamp and leads Amara away, mollified.

Rufus then assembles Philos, Quintus, and Lucius as witnesses and then sends for Felix. In front of everyone, he announces that he’s purchasing Amara for 6,000 sesterces on behalf of Admiral Pliny. Philos produces Pliny’s seal as a pledge. Felix accepts and signs the agreement. Rufus then declares Amara free. Now called Gaia Plinia Amara, Liberta, she collapses in tears.

Amara celebrates her freedom with the women of the Wolf Den, embracing Dido and Victoria repeatedly, laughing with Rufus’s friends, and even wringing a hug from Paris. Felix watches in visible surprise, evidently realizing that her stories about Rufus being violent were lies. Rufus, eager to leave, begins steering Amara away from her former companions.

In the crowded Forum, a heavily built man in a red satyr mask begins moving deliberately through the crowd toward Felix. Amara recognizes the threat before anyone else. Felix draws his knife as the satyr draws his own. The surrounding crowd mistakes the confrontation for a performance and cheers. Amara sees Dido trapped near the fighters, held around the waist by a drunk man who won’t let go. She shouts to Lucius for help, but he does nothing. Disgusted by his cowardice, she tears away from Rufus, screaming for Britannica. Britannica pulls Amara clear of the crush and then fights toward Dido, but the mass of bodies holds her back.

Amara drops to her knees and crawls through the crowd toward Dido. Felix stumbles over someone’s foot and lurches toward Dido. The satyr seizes the moment, lunging at the off-balance Felix—who throws himself aside. The blade buries itself in Dido’s back instead. The drunk man releases her in shock. The crowd finally recoils. Men rush forward, tear off the satyr’s mask, and reveal him as Balbus, Simo’s freedman, before beating him to death.

Amara reaches Dido and finds Britannica already holding her. She takes Dido’s hand, tells her that she will recover, and keeps talking to her softly. Victoria arrives and sits with them. Dido dies. Britannica says that she’s gone, but Amara refuses to let go. Victoria drags her upright. Amara sees Felix watching and screams her blame at him until her voice breaks. Philos then lifts her over his shoulder and carries her from the Forum.

In the days after the Saturnalia, Amara sits alone in her new house, free but consumed by grief. She opens a box on her desk and finds Pliny’s letter to Rufus, which argues for her release through an extended meditation on caged birds that fall silent in captivity. It emerges that Rufus wrote to Pliny for advice when his father refused to grant Amara her freedom. To free Amara, Rufus would have had to give her his family name, and Hortensius couldn’t accept that, as it would have damaged the family’s social standing. Pliny responded by providing his name and half the purchase price. Rufus reminds Amara that he paid the other half, and Amara begins to suspect that for Rufus, the pleasure of setting her free is less satisfying than the feeling of possessing her.

Rufus couldn’t bear the intensity of her grief after Dido’s death, as it deprived him of the pleasure he expected to take from her joy and gratitude, and it was Philos who carried her home to recover. Philos had coldly advised her that Rufus would never understand mourning for an enslaved woman and that she must grieve in private. She followed his advice: When Rufus returned, she wore her white dress, apologized for her own sorrow, and lavished him with affection. Neither of them has spoken Dido’s name since. Alone, Amara remembers Dido constantly—her kindness, her singing, and the pain and fear on her face as she died. She has also commissioned a fresco for the garden depicting Actaeon torn apart by his own hounds, a choice that Rufus finds puzzling.

Amara then receives Pitane, a waitress from The Elephant who owes her for past help. She gives Pitane a wooden statue of Diana the huntress, wrapped in cloth and labeled with her new name—Gaia Plinia Amara, Liberta—to be delivered to Felix via Paris, with a message apologizing that the Saturnalia gift is late. As Pitane leaves with it, Amara stands alone, certain that Felix will understand exactly what the image of the huntress means.