After she’d finished, retelling only the parts that were truly necessary, Crispus stared at the ground for a long time, his lips pursed together. Then he turned to Iole.

  “If you don’t like me, all you had to do was tell me.”

  “Whaaaa?” Iole started.

  “I understand that I’m not much, as it were. I know I’m only a slave and you’re a Vestal. Fine. But if I’d known you really despised me, I would have tried very hard not to look, not to smile, not to even think …”

  “Crispus,” Iole said.

  “But to have your friend try to convince me that you’re all insane is slightly beyond …”

  “Hey, smelly!” Alcie snapped. “We’re not insane! It’s all true. And, just so we’re all clear here, Iole does like you. I can tell!”

  “Oh Gods,” mumbled Iole as Alcie tore on.

  “All we want is to get through this maze and find an artist we think has been taken down here so we can keep him from creating a whole new coin. Simple. Now if you need a little proof about everything that Pandy has told you, fine! Pay attention. Pandy, do something.”

  Pandy picked up the stick leaning against the tunnel wall, one end now charred black, and focused her mind. Instantly, the blackened end began to glow a faint orangey red.

  “Jupiter!” Crispus cried.

  “He’s not here,” Alcie said, feeling another energy surge and bouncing on her heels. “You lookin’?”

  “Yes,” Crispus said, amazed as the stick caught fire once again.

  “So,” Pandy said, holding the brand up to her face so that Crispus could see her eyes. “I’m not lying. None of us are. Now you know why we’re here in Rome. It’s a lot to … to …”

  “Comprehend,” said Iole.

  “Thank you,” said Pandy. “Comprehend, but believe me, you’ll have plenty of time to think about it all later. Right now, we need your help. Can you guide us?”

  Crispus looked at each of them in turn, but it was only when he looked at Iole—her beautiful little face, now devoid of any cheek blush or lip color, just her big brown eyes staring at him—pleading, that he melted.

  Crispus took the torch from Pandy. “Follow me.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Flood

  Crispus wound his way through the labyrinth of the tunnels for an hour, stopping only occasionally to caution Pandy and Alcie.

  “Do you two know where you’re going?”

  “Nope,” Alcie said.

  “Then would you mind not sprinting ahead like rabbits?” Crispus said. “It only slows us down when we have to wait for you to join us again.”

  “Got it,” Pandy said, running in place.

  “So,” Iole said, somehow always finding herself closer to Crispus than she might have thought appropriate—Vestal or not, “I’m ascertaining we’re close to the Cloaca Maxima, correct?”

  “Not really,” Crispus said. “Why would you think that?”

  “Because of the loud noise,” Iole said, surprised. “There’s the sound of a huge rush of water and I thought it was the main drain into the Tiber.”

  “I hear nothing,” said Crispus. “Everyone be still, please.”

  Pandy and Alcie stopped fake-slapping at each other and Homer didn’t move a muscle.

  “Nothing,” Pandy said.

  “Well, whatever it is,” Iole asserted, “it’s getting louder.”

  “Bellowing Bacchus!” Crispus yelled. “They’re draining the baths!”

  “This is bad?” Alcie said.

  “Come on!” he cried, taking off like a deer.

  “Sweet,” said Alcie. “We get to run!”

  “Iole!” Homer commanded and without a word, Iole jumped into Homer’s arms as he dashed down the tunnel.

  All of a sudden, there was a rush of wind at their backs along with the slight scents of sulfur, olive oil, eucalyptus, and burnt sage, and everyone heard the horrible sound. Then the wind in the tunnel began to carry tiny droplets of moisture.

  “Move!” Crispus cried, although he was the one beginning to drag behind. Without breaking his stride, Homer picked up Crispus in one swift motion.

  “Up … ahead,” Crispus choked out, his rib cage bouncing off Homer’s forearm. “There’s an opening—an alcove—on the left!”

  Pandy and Alcie ducked inside quickly, but Homer couldn’t fit through the opening without first setting Iole and Crispus down. They hurried through, but Homer made the mistake of looking back up the tunnel. The flood of bathwater slammed into him so fast, he was there one moment and gone the next.

  “Homie!” Alcie screamed.

  The torrent of warm, oily water was at least a meter high and rising; water was splashing against the opening and spilling into the shallow cutout in the tunnel wall, barely big enough for two people let alone five. Then, Iole clutched Pandy’s arm.

  “Look!” she cried.

  There, clinging to the corner of the opening, were two sets of fingers, growing whiter as their grip loosened against the onslaught of water.

  “Get him!” shouted Alcie. “Pull him in!”

  Crispus leaned out and grabbed Homer’s wrists, but his strength was no match for the current.

  “I’m losing him!”

  Without warning, Pandy felt an energy surge unlike any she’d felt before.

  “Move, please!” Pandy said, leaning over Crispus and grabbing hold of Homer’s wrists. Crispus shrank back slightly into the alcove as Alcie joined Pandy and latched on to Homer. Together, the girls hauled Homer out of the flooding river of bathwater like they were picking a piece of lint off a floor cushion. Then they settled him in the cramped space where now everyone was pressed into the rock—and each other. Shaking slightly, Homer coughed and sputtered for a bit, spitting up a small quantity of water.

  “Oh, Homie,” Alcie said, unheard over the din. She was trying to wriggle her arms free from where they’d become pinned behind her back. Then she realized that she’d have to poke and prod the others if she did, so she settled for just being able to rest her head on his heaving chest.

  “P!?” she yelled, looking at Pandy, now scrunched back to back with Crispus. “Did you feel that? Was that amazing or what?”

  “You bet I felt it,” Pandy answered over the roar of the rushing water. “I felt like I could move a mountain! Gotta love those rolls!”

  “I hate to interrupt you two Titans,” Iole said loudly. “But we have another problem.”

  “What?” asked Pandy.

  “Check the hems of your togas,” Iole called out. “You might find them a little damp.”

  With all of them crammed into the small alcove, the water splashing inside was now also rising; Iole’s head would be the first to go under, but the others would soon follow.

  “Crispus!” Pandy cried. “How long does it usually take to drain the baths?”

  “It should have been over by now, if it was just one,” he yelled. “But because the big feast is tomorrow—I mean, tonight—everyone is going to want fresh bathwater. So they’re probably draining them all! This could go on for hours!”

  “Oh Gods!” Pandy exclaimed.

  There was absolutely nowhere to go.

  Suddenly, Crispus raised his voice and began chanting.

  “What are you doing? And why are you doing it now?” Alcie couldn’t help but ask.

  “Saying a prayer to Cloacina, the Goddess of the Sewers,” he shot back. “The workers say it every morning when they enter the tunnels and Romans who like clean water say it all the time. Now don’t interrupt! In fact, say it with me, all of you! ‘O Cloacina, Goddess of this place, look on thy worshipers with a smiling face. Soft, yet cohesive let their offerings flow, not rashly swift nor insolently slow. Accept our offerings as all we have to give. From earth, through us, and back again! And so, through you, we live!’ “

  “You gotta be kidding!” yelled Alcie.

  “IT’S WHAT WE SAY!” screamed Crispus.

  “O Cloacina, Goddess of this place,” everyone began to chant, over and over. “Look on thy worshipers with a smiling face …”

  All at once, there was a huge jolt as if an earthquake were shaking the whole city. Iole’s head went underwater for a moment and when she emerged, she was beyond terrified.

  “I don’t think it’s working,” she said through chattering teeth.

  “We’re making the goddess mad with that chant,” Alcie said.

  “We’re not!” Crispus cried. “Keep going!”

  They all raised their voices louder and the earth gave another huge jolt.

  “Again!” shouted Crispus.

  Then, right in the middle of the chant, the stone wall at their backs suddenly gave way as if it had been blown apart, and the five of them went tumbling backward, carried by a flood of bathwater. It went black for a moment and Pandy saw nothing, but she felt a tangle of limbs and clothing as they brushed, crashed, and swirled around her. Then, like a school of fish caught in a net then thrown onto a dock, they all skittered to a stop on a large, smooth rock floor.

  Pandy spat out bathwater and crawled out from under Alcie’s cloak, as everyone else also tried to free themselves from the soaking wet pile. Pandy’s eyes were trying to adjust to the new light all around her and as she squinted, she saw that she, Alcie, Homer, and Crispus were splayed on the floor of an enormous cavern. Instantly, her memory recalled visions of the Chamber of Despair in Egypt and the Garden of the Jinn in ancient Persia. Like the Chamber, this place reeked with a strange smell, though not quite as overwhelming. But this cavern had three singular things that set it apart from those others.

  The water, the lights … and the faces.

  All around her—even on the ceiling—nearly everywhere Pandy looked, the face of a beautiful woman, the same woman, was carved in dozens of spots, high and low on the rough, dark gray cavern walls. There were many different sizes; some were as tall and wide as large horses, others were as small as serving platters. But out of the mouth and eyes of each was flowing a stream of water; hundreds if not thousands of liters of water were gushing per second, creating waterfalls everywhere. Large drainage pipes—from all over the city, Pandy thought—were emptying their contents here, which was of course why it smelled. Although, at this particular moment, the foul odor was being overtaken by the same smell she’d caught in the tunnel: bathwater, bathing oil, and pungent eucalyptus; the resulting spray was not entirely unpleasant.

  Trying to peer through the mist, Pandy could just make out one especially large carved face, at least five meters high, at the very back of the cavern floor. Out of the mouth flowed a wide, unending stream.

  “That’s the Cloaca Maxima. The main drain,” Iole said from behind her. Pandy just nodded, not turning around.

  The draining water dropped into deep, wide pools, which overflowed the floor of the cavern and then joined the main stream, making the cavern nearly impossible to cross. But these pools seemed magically lit from within, as if candles or lamps somehow burned brightly at the bottom of each. And each was its own brilliant color: leafy greens, blood reds, cobalt blues, lemon yellows, and on and on. The main stream, the Cloaca Maxima, was lit its entire length in the color of a pink and orange sunset as it ran at a very slight angle downward toward a great arched hole in a far wall.

  “And through that hole,” Iole said again, “everything flows into the Tiber.”

  Pandy could only imagine what the cavern would be like when the baths weren’t draining, when … other things were being sent into the Tiber.

  “The question is,” Pandy said, now turning to face Iole, “how do we get out? Iole?”

  But Iole wasn’t there.

  “Yes?” came Iole’s voice out of thin air.

  Pandy jumped back, nearly landing in the main drain.

  “Iole … where are you?”

  “Right here.”

  “Alcie! Homer!” Pandy called, motioning every one over and around the disembodied voice. “Do you see Iole?”

  “Pandy, what’s wrong,” Iole said. “I’m standing right in front of you.”

  “Hate to break it to you, shortness,” Alcie said slowly, coming up behind Pandy with Homer. “But if you are, you’ve gotten very thin.”

  “You can’t see me?”

  “Not at all,” said Crispus.

  “Okay,” said Iole. “Okay, then this has to be the effect of the roll, correct? But why?”

  “Exactly,” said Pandy. “Why would you need to be invisible?”

  The next instant, Pandy spotted two huge shapes moving forward through the mist. For a moment, they were unrecognizable. Then Pandy’s stomach flipped over as Juno—or was it Hera?—stepped into sight.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Cloacina

  “Hera, darling, you were right: you were hearing voices!”

  Then Hera stepped alongside Juno, and Pandy wondered how she could ever have mistaken one for the other. Hera’s brow was more deeply furrowed, her lips were just a tad thinner, and the Romans hadn’t given their chief female deity as expansive a waistline. And there was a hatred in Hera’s eyes when she saw Pandy that was singular and unmatchable. At least, it looked that way to Pandy.

  “Oh, Juno!” said Hera, batting at the mist as she stepped on—not in—the pinkish-orange stream. “It’s nowhere near my birthday, and yet you’ve brought me presents. Little rag dolls in the likeness of my favorite brats that I can toss against the walls, throw on the ground … and tear limb from limb.”

  “I didn’t bring them here, my dear,” Juno said. “I’m guessing it was that noxious, odious killjoy we have locked up. This is her work.”

  “I see almost everyone I know: muscle boy, smart mouth, and the thorn in my side … and a stranger,” Hera said, glancing at Crispus. “Poor stranger. Wrong place, wrong time.”

  She turned to glower at Pandy.

  “Where’s the smart one?”

  Pandy didn’t answer, not knowing exactly how to cover, but rightly guessing that Iole was, at the moment, invisible to immortals as well.

  “Iole is a Vestal, sweet goddess,” Crispus piped up. “She would never be caught outside at night, alone.”

  “Well then, let me guess!” Juno cried. “Just let me see if I can guess from your descriptions, Hera; now this one is Homer, right?”

  “Right,” said Hera, staring at the blond youth.

  “I have no idea who this one is.”

  “Crispus, my lady,” he said, bowing. “May I say it is an honor—”

  “Shut up,” said Juno. “And this one must be Alcestis, because you said she was prettier than the others. So that means this one—the plain one with the boring brown eyes—this one has to be … Pandora!”

  “Right on all counts!” said Hera, clapping. “Now, once again, my little bratty-cakes, how to do it? I want to see you really suffer. So, how to do it?”

  “Oh, let me help! Please!” cried Juno.

  “Of course,” Hera said, circling. “And why not start with the one that ‘didn’t take’ as it were; the one Hades tossed out of the underworld. Pandora, isn’t this fun? You can watch your friend Alcestis die all over again.”

  Pandy tried to summon her considerable strength, but found her hands instantly pinned behind her back by an enchantment.

  Hera raised her arms to hurl a death blow to Alcie … who just stood, staring the goddess down.

  “Oooh,” said Juno. “See how she glares at you, Sister! The impudence!”

  “Yeah, well I was blind last time, right, Queenie?” spat Alcie, although her knees had begun to shake. “Kinda easy to take down a blind girl, huh? Apri—I mean, you bet; that took some major courage. So go ahead!”

  Hera’s eyes narrowed into slits and her mouth pulled back into a snarl. Just then, a pitiful scream—and then another—echoed from somewhere deep within the cavern.

  “The artist!” cried Juno. “Something’s happened to him. Come, Sister!”

  “Awwwww! But I want to kill them!”

  “All in good time, darling,” Juno said, hurrying back into the rainbow–tinted bathwater mist. “Let’s take them all with us, shall we?”

  At once, Pandy and the others felt themselves lifted off the ground and flown swiftly through the spray. In moments, they could all see that the cavern was even larger than they thought; the entire main section had been completely obscured. As Pandy was dumped roughly on the ground, she caught sight of a chair, a work table, and Varius, pale and thin, trying to jump up and down although his feet were heavily shackled.

  Juno and Hera were literally standing over him as he rubbed his backside.

  “Something poked me!” he cried. “Then it kept poking me!”

  “There’s nothing here, you idiot!” Hera cried. “And stop trying to delay the inevitable. When you were brought here, you said you couldn’t work with your kidnappers hanging around to guard you, so we changed them into eels. You said you were hungry so we gave you a crust of bread. You said you were thirsty so we gave you a sip of water. Clean water! You said you couldn’t carve a new coin because all your tools were still in your shack, so we brought them to you. Now finish the face of Lucius Valerius or I will turn you into a Satyr that loves to drink only from the Cloaca Maxima!”

  “Nice thinking,” said Juno.

  “I still don’t know why we can’t just create this coin our own sweet selves,” Hera said. “Why do we need this scrawny mortal to do the work?”

  “I’ve explained it to you already, my dear,” Juno said. “The work must look like it was humanly crafted so as not to arouse suspicion. If we did it, it would be flawless and therefore unusable.”

  “Right. Fine. And now, where was I?” Hera said, turning toward Pandy.

  “Wait, Sister,” Juno said. “I’ve been thinking; this whole business about not being caught outside has put an idea into my head. I think they should be caught as runaways! First of all, Pandora and Alcestis belong to the house of Valerius and if they’re not there to help with Caesar’s final feast, then a great fuss will be made about that. We must see that they’re in attendance to help things run smoothly at the celebration until the time that Caesar unveils the coin of the empire. Now, we can kill Pandora and her friends anytime, but imagine the fun we’ll have watching them hopping about like frightened deer, with the master and mistress of the house furious with them for being caught as runaways. And of course they’ll be tortured with gruesome thoughts about how and when you and I will finally deliver their grisly ends!”