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she settled herself on Marcus’s stool and smoothed her skirt over her knees. Pulling an uncrumpled sheet of papyrus across the table, she bent her head to examine it.
    Marcus gave a sigh of mock exasperation. “Don’t you have work to do?”
    “Of course. We live on a farm. I always have work to do.”
    “Then go do it.”
    “In time, brother, in time.” Leaning close, she peered at the drawing of a sword and its accompanying notations. “What’s this? A new commission?”
    “No.”
    “Then what?”
    Marcus shrugged. “It’s just an idea.”
    Breena’s eyes lit up. She loved his “ideas.”
    “Tell me,” she demanded in the imperious tone she’d perfected when she was five years old.
    He chuckled. “It’s a new type of sword, Bug.”
    She shot him a dark look but didn’t comment on his use of her childhood nickname. “But it’s so oddly proportioned! The blade is too long.”
    “It’s not a
gladius.
Or a Celt sword.”
    She looked up, interest kindling in her eyes. “Then what, exactly, is it?”
    “A new design. My own.” Her enthusiasm sparked his. He reached for a second and third sketch and arranged them on either side of the first. “This is a
gladius,”
he said, pointing to the drawing on the left. “It’s short, light, and easily maneuvered. The Celts prefer a longer blade.” He tapped the drawing on the right. “But with length comes increased weight, making the weapon harder to control.”
    “But your new sword is even longer!”
    “Yes, but it’s thinner as well. That will make it easier to handle. It will have the reach of a Celt sword, but weigh no more than a Roman sword.”
    Breena’s brow furrowed as she compared the three designs. Marcus watched her with true affection. His half sister was no typical girl. Her interests were not anything one might describe as womanly. She could read and write both Latin and Greek. When she wanted entertainment, she did not shop for imported silks and shoes. She studied Aristotle and Euclid.
    “It won’t work,” she declared after a moment. “The slender blade won’t be able to counter the strike of a heavier blade. It will break.”
    Trust Breena to focus on the heart of the matter. “It won’t,” he told her. “Not if I succeed in smelting bright iron.”
    Breena’s blue eyes fixed on him. “Bright iron? I’ve never heard of it.”
    “It’s the latest talk at the blacksmith’s
collegio.
A very hot furnace produces a stronger, brighter iron. The new metal is properly named
chalybs,
after an iron-working tribe in Anatolia.”
    “If this
chalybs
is so wonderful, why aren’t all swords made of it?”
    “It’s extremely difficult to smelt. The heat that’s needed is incredible, and must be sustained for hours.”
    “Ah,” Breena said, reaching for yet another drawing. “Now I understand what this is.”
    She smoothed the wrinkled page, which bore a diagram of a furnace. She squinted, trying to read the notations Marcus had scrawled in heavy, messy letters.
    “Will building a deep furnace chamber within the existing chamber and increasing airflow truly produce enough heat for your purpose?”
    Marcus grimaced. “I’m not entirely sure. A higher quality of charcoal will also help, I expect. I mean to explore all possibilities.”
    Breena grinned, showing the gap between her front teeth. “You’ll do it, Marcus. I cannot remember one of your designs that didn’t come to life.” Her gaze drifted to the shelf above the worktable. “But that silver wolf you’re always playing with is more alive than anything you’ve ever made. Look at its face! It almost seems human.”
    Marcus closed his eyes, his throat suddenly tight. The wolf
was
human. Memories, more than a year old but still as vivid as yesterday, flashed behind his eyelids. He was back in the dank, dripping cave, the dying light of his torch illuminating feral gray eyes.
    The she-wolf snarled and leapt. But weak as it was, the attack fell short. The animal