As he lays me upon my workbench, he is not careful of my possessions, and sweeps a tray of completed commissions aside. My head lolls to the side and I see four rings fall onto the floor. I watch him accidentally tread on one of them, flattening it completely beneath his bulk.

It is the ring I made for him.

He leans over me, his words urgent, and his grief at my passing is genuine.

Sejanus barks questions at me, but I can make little sense of them.

Life is slipping away. My eyes close, but before I am gone, I hear Sejanus ask his last questions.

Who did this? What did he say?

With my last spark of life, I dredge the dying memories left to me and force my killer’s last words up through my ruined larynx.

I can’t say.