"I hope she'll forgive me for tying her this way," Brutus said. "You cannot imagine how loud that girl gets when she's angry."
"And have you forgotten what I can do when I'm angry?" I said. Because I was plenty angry.
"How could I forget?" He smiled as he spoke. "What you can do is the reason we're all here tonight."
Not fully trusting my own eyes, I squinted back at him. "How did you get here? The emperor had you arrested."
Brutus widened his arms, showing his arrogance. "I told you that I'd give him the answers he wanted." His eyes darkened. "Not everything was to the emperor's satisfaction, unfortunately. I've been stripped of my Praetorship, my wealth, my social status." Then he nodded toward his arm. "Luckily for me, the emperor does not know the significance of this armband. By the time he figures it out, I will have forced you to make the Jupiter Stone and will have turned it over to the Mistress."
Aurelia yelled into the rag and shook her head again.
"Yes, girl." From above us, the dragon gave a deep laugh. "Use your anger. Diana admires that about you, just as she does in me."
"See what I mean?" Brutus shook Aurelia's arm until she quieted down. "Just imagine what she was like before I bound up her mouth."
"Make the storm, and we'll release her afterward," the Mistress said. "You promised to make me a Jupiter Stone!"
"With what rock?" I smiled, which I knew would irritate her. "Do you have one? Or did you forget about that?"
An irritated growl erupted from one side of her mouth. Her tail swished in the air a few times as she considered her options. Would one of the fallen concrete chunks work, or a rock from the ground outside? Or was a special rock required for me to be successful?
Finally, Brutus said, "Diana will provide the rock. Then you can make it!"
"Even if I can, I still won't, not until you let me talk to Aurelia."
Brutus pulled Aurelia even closer to him. "You are thinking that if I refuse, you can throw a little magic at me and have your way. Well, I can do plenty of damage before that magic comes. You won't risk the sewer girl's safety."
"If you want my cooperation, you won't risk her safety either," I warned.
There was something about my words that Aurelia particularly didn't like. She leapt forward, yelling something again, until Brutus pulled her back.
"Give me the amulets," Brutus said. "For them, I will trade five minutes to speak with the girl, if you are foolish enough to remove the rag. Then when you return her to my control, I will return your magic and you will make the storm."
It was a ridiculous proposal. "Even you cannot be stupid enough to think I'd give you the amulets!" I raised a hand, intending to get Aurelia away from him, but he moved her body directly in front of his.
The tall bronze doors to the Pantheon opened, and we all turned to see who had come. I saw the shiny golden horn of a unicorn first. Callistus's hooves clattered on the marble floor, but he wasn't alone. Aurelia's bow and arrow were still fixed to his saddle, though when I saw the rider, I figured the bow would never get used. The old vestalis sat there, commanding and calm. Her white robes were nearly the same color as Callistus's fur, giving them a look of being as one.
However, when she saw me, every part of her face pointed downward in disapproval. Her eye roamed to the Mistress, then went to Brutus and Aurelia, ending again with me. She let out a heavy sigh. "If you had done as I asked in the first place, things would not be nearly so complicated now."
"How did you know I was here?" I asked.
The old woman smiled. "When you see a dragon flying over the streets of Rome with someone in its grasp, it's not hard to figure out what is happening. I called on your unicorn for help."
She surveyed the room again as if trying to orient herself to what was happening between Brutus and me. "Ah, yes," she murmured, then held out her hand. "I will hold the amulets."
If it were anyone else, I would wonder how she could know what our conversation had been. But somehow with the vestalis, I'd have been more surprised if she hadn't known.
With her hand still held out to me, she looked at Decimas Brutus. "Surely you trust a vestalis?"
From the pinch on his face, his answer was no, but he couldn't say that directly to a holy woman, so Brutus only said, "If you give your word to hold them until the girl is returned to me, then I must believe you."
Her intense expression asked me to trust her. "Nicolas, give me the amulets."
Aurelia shook her head and tried to speak. I kept a watchful eye on her as I unlaced the Malice, then pulled the bulla off from around my neck and handed them to the vestalis, letting my hand brush against Callistus as I lowered my arm.
It was an odd thing to see the vestalis holding the amulets, respectfully, but with no awareness of the magic within them. She didn't respond to their weight or warmth, or react any differently than she would if I had given her a child's bulla and a tin armband. Yet although she seemed unaware, I was not. All I could feel within me was the loss of magic, like a hole had opened inside me.
Well, there was one other feeling, and that was the desire to speak to Aurelia.