Two self-contained stories featuring Junia Secunda, set after the published third book, The Saturnalia Seal. They offer a further glimpse into household relationships without introducing or announcing an unpublished novel.

Browse the published Vestal mysteries in reading order, or explore more of Theo Penrose’s books.

Bonus Story 5 — The Unsent Invitation

January 114 CE

The invitation was insulting only if it had actually been sent.

That distinction occupied most of the morning.

A patrician widow named Vibia Marcella had complained that the House ignored an invitation to a memorial meal for her sister.

The House possessed no invitation.

Marcella possessed a messenger who swore he delivered one.

Both could not be comfortably correct.

Junia would once have enjoyed asking Quintus what he thought.

That was before Saturnalia.

Before Felix’s death.

Before Quintus admitted that while warning Junia against hidden bias, he had still withheld part of his own family’s vulnerability.

Trust had not vanished.

It had become colder.

More exact.

She hated that too.

The messenger remembered leaving the tablet “at the Vestals’ door.”

“There is more than one entrance,” Junia said.

He looked alarmed.

“To Rome?”

“To the House.”

He had left it with a temporary porter near a service entrance used during repair work.

The repair work had ended months ago.

The porter now served a nearby administrative office.

The invitation was found there beneath three petitions and a complaint about drainage.

Unsent?

No.

Undelivered?

Yes.

Insult?

No.

Marcella accepted the explanation and immediately complained about administrative incompetence instead.

Junia considered this progress.

She encountered Quintus as she left the office.

He held a tablet.

Of course.

“You found the invitation,” he said.

“Yes.”

“Misdelivered?”

“Yes.”

“Not suppressed?”

“No.”

He inclined his head.

“Good.”

Junia waited for something else.

Nothing came.

He had become very careful since Saturnalia.

Not distant in work.

Careful with her.

It was worse than argument.

She said, “You can disagree with me, you know.”

His gaze sharpened.

“I am aware.”

“You have done it professionally.”

“Yes.”

“Frequently.”

“Yes.”

“Then why are you behaving as though every other sentence requires permission?”

A pause.

“Because I gave you reason to doubt what I kept outside the sentence.”

The answer was too honest.

Junia looked away.

Cold wind moved down the street between buildings.

“I do not want politeness,” she said.

“No.”

“I want accuracy.”

“Yes.”

“And I still do not know if you understand the difference.”

Quintus accepted that.

“I know.”

He did not ask forgiveness.

Not yet.

She was grateful.

And irritated.

Both remained possible.

Junia walked back toward the House.

Behind her Quintus did not follow.

He had learned that restraint could also be evidence.

---

Bonus Story 6 — The Ivory Tooth

March 114 CE

The broken comb had seven teeth.

The owner insisted it once had eight.

The laundry girl insisted she had never touched it.

Tertia insisted no one should own an ivory comb expensive enough to cause this degree of misery.

Junia agreed only with the third statement.

The missing tooth mattered because it had supposedly vanished while the comb was wrapped inside a linen bundle entrusted to the House’s washing women.

The owner, an elderly relative of one of the attendants, demanded repayment.

The laundry girl had begun to cry.

Junia examined the cloth.

A small tear ran near one corner.

Not cut.

Caught.

She searched the woven edge with her fingertips and found nothing.

Then Quintus, standing at the outer portico with an unrelated tablet, said, “May I ask an irrelevant question?”

Junia looked at him.

“You usually do.”

The old rhythm returned so unexpectedly that both of them noticed.

He said, “Where was the bundle dried?”

The chief washerwoman pointed toward a wooden rack near the fountain.

One crosspiece had split.

Junia walked to it.

Inside the narrow crack was something pale.

The missing ivory tooth.

It had snagged through the linen, broken from the comb, and lodged in the drying frame.

The laundry girl was cleared.

The owner received her fragment.

Tertia announced that the gods had preserved seven-eighths of Roman vanity.

Junia should have laughed.

Instead she looked at Quintus.

He remained where he was.

He had supplied the useful question and left the conclusion to her.

“You could have checked the rack yourself,” she said later.

“I was not invited into the washing area.”

“No.”

“So I did not.”

A year ago, she might have interpreted that as stiffness.

Now she heard something else.

He was trying to become trustworthy in the places where apology alone could not repair trust.

Junia said, “The question was useful.”

“High praise.”

“Do not make it excessive.”

“I would not dare.”

For the first time since Saturnalia, the silence between them did not feel damaged.

Not repaired.

But capable of repair.

That was enough for March.

---

Reading position: after Book 3, The Saturnalia Seal. These companion stories are not a new main-series installment.