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he’d soon be useless at his work, rendered so by the coming of night. Although there was much left here to do, it would all suddenly seem unimportant when the fullness of the moon summoned him to take part in carnal rituals the Satyr had enjoyed since the dawn of time.
    â€œBut since you ask,” Sevin added, picking up the thread of their conversation, “I’ve come to enquire after the welfare of my employee.”
    â€œMichaela?” Bastian glared at him.
    Sevin’s expression was all innocence, but his silver-blue eyes gleamed with humor.
    Bastian gestured in an innately Italian way, a turn of his hand that brushed off any concern. “You’ll see for yourself this very night that she’s unharmed by my attentions.”
    â€œAh. Your attentions. Frequent, are they?” Sevin’s long legs found the footstool and he crossed booted ankles upon it. Setting his elbows on the arms of the chair, he steepled his fingers over his expansive chest, tapping them with a satisfied air.
    Settling in to enjoy his teasing, Bastian assumed. “I’m sure you’re well aware of their frequency. As I’m aware of the in frequency of females in your bed lately.”
    Sevin’s smile only widened. “Alas, it’s true. I’m surrounded by women at my establishment, but loath to bed even one lest she form an attachment to her employer. I discovered early on that favoritism is bad for morale. Business at the Salone di Passione is brisk and new employees are in need of lodgings. Yet, Michaela’s chamber stands empty for nights on end. Shall I make it available to another who would put it to more profitable use?”
    â€œI have no wedding plans if that’s what you’re angling to know,” Bastian informed him. “Michaela and I are both satisfied with the current nature of our relationship and need no coaching in any direction from the likes of relatives. Let her keep her lodgings at the salon—lodgings I fund, I’ll remind you—as a closet for her belongings in the manner in which she currently does. She has not taken up permanent residence with me. And will not.”
    Sevin chuckled, unfazed. “You’re a bear this evening. Too many sleepless nights?”
    â€œThe only thing troubling my sleep is the damned Roman Parliament.” Bastian perched a pair of goggles with elongated lenses on the bridge of his hawkish nose and took up the largest of the shards that had been found outside in the dig only an hour ago.
    â€œHow so?” Idly, Sevin picked up a terracotta urn from the nearest shelf, then gazed at it with distaste. It was newly unearthed and still covered with grime.
    Bastian tossed a wire brush to him. “Make yourself useful and polish that into gold, will you?” He smiled to himself, knowing how his brother disliked anything to do with the digs.
    â€œTerracotta into gold? That would be a neat trick.” Grimacing, Sevin nevertheless began whisking the brush over the surface of the urn. Their archaeologist father had taught all of them the rudiments of excavation as boys, and Sevin knew the work well. But Bastian was the only one who’d followed in their father’s footsteps.
    Bastian adjusted the magnification of the goggles’ lenses until he was finally able to read the writing he’d noted earlier on the shard: “Amata.” Beloved . He smoothed the pad of his thumb over the word, enjoying the slightly gritty feel of it and the knowledge that he was touching something that had been created untold centuries ago.
    â€œEvery find we make here is lauded and exclaimed over, but I’ve hardly finished one when Parliament is clamoring for another,” he went on in disgust. “The new Minister of Culture has no respect for history, only for power and gold.”
    â€œIf I have the minister to thank for this lowly task, then I despise him, too,” said Sevin, giving the urn a