There's a scary secret behind the wall paintings in Pompeii's Villa of the Mysteries. For Chryse of Herculaneum, a painter of birds and flowers who has struggled to make a living since her artist husband's death, a commission from a wealthy noblewoman seems to be gods-sent. However, flowers aren't exactly what her new patroness has in mind. Chryse must deceive the Emperor Nero, who proclaims himself a connoisseur of the arts, and Maximus, the eagle-eyed...