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uneasily on my couch.
    “Perhaps . . .” I shrugged. “Perhaps you were cleaning his room. Perhaps one of the figurines fell and broke—”
    “Do you think I’m blind as well as clumsy? I think I should know if I had broken one of Eco’s figurines,” she said coolly, “especially if I did such a thing three days in a row.”
    “Of course. Still, considering the way you feel about those figurines—”
    “And do you know how I feel about them, Master?” Bethesda fixed me with her catlike stare.
    I cleared my throat. “Well, I know you don’t like them—”
    “I respect them for what they are. You think they’re just lumps of lifeless clay, a child’s toys made by a clumsy potter. You Romans! You’ve put so much of your faith in the handful of gods who made you great that you can no longer see the tiny gods who populate your own households. There’s a spark of life in every one of the figurines that Eco has brought into the house. It’s unwise to bring so many into the house at once, when there’s so little we know about any of them. Do you know what I think? I think the three who’ve gone missing may have left of their own volition.”
    “What? You think they jumped from the shelf and scampered off?”
    “You scoff, Master, but it may be that the three who left were unhappy with the company in which they found themselves. Or perhaps the others ganged up on them and drove them off!” As her voice rose, so did Bethesda, sitting upright on the couch. Bast, disliking the change in her mistress’s disposition, jumped from her lap and ran off.
    “Bethesda, this is preposterous. They’re only bits of painted clay!”
    She recovered her composure and leaned back. “So you say, Master. So you say.”
    “The point is, those figurines are of great value to Eco. He’s very proud of them. They’re his possessions. He earned them by his own labor.”
    “If you say so, Master. Being a mere slave, I wouldn’t know much about earning and owning.”
    Her tone expressed no empathy for Eco at all, and certainly no remorse. I became more determined than ever to make good on my pledge to Eco to solve the mystery of his disappearing monsters.

    That night, after Bethesda was asleep, I slipped out of bed and stole to the garden at the center of the house, which was lit by a full moon. In an inconspicuous spot beside one of the columns of the portico, I located the purchase I had made earlier that day on the Street of the Plastermakers. It was a tightly woven linen bag containing a handful or so of plaster dust. Carrying the bag, I slipped through the curtained doorway into Eco’s room. The moonlight that poured in through the small window showed Eco soundly asleep on his cot. Reaching into the bag, I scattered a very fine layer of plaster dust onto the floor in front of the niche that contained his figurines. The dust was so fine that a tiny cloud rose from my hand and seemed to sparkle in the moonlight.
    My eyes watered and my nose twitched. I slipped out of Eco’s room, put away the bag of plaster dust, and stole back to my bed. I slipped under the covers beside Bethesda. Only then did I release a sneeze that broke the silence like thunder.
    Bethesda murmured and rolled onto her side, but did not wake.

    The next morning I woke to the sound of birds in the garden—not pleasant singing, but the shrill cawing of two magpies squabbling in the trees. I covered my ears with my pillow, but it was no good. I was up for the day.
    Stepping out of bed, I inadvertently kicked a shoe—one of the pair that Bethesda had brought home from the cobbler the previous day—and sent it skittering under the bed. Dropping to my hands and knees to retrieve it, I was stopped short by the sight of four objects on the floor beneath the bed, directly underneath the space where Bethesda slept, against the wall. They were clustered in a little group, lying on their sides. Joining the missing figurines of Cerberus, the Minotaur, and the