I took them out of time, and back in to the front lawn of the Chateau Cirey in May of 1750. My sun was pleasantly warm, the trees were in spring blossom, the birds were singing, and best of all they were all that remained of dinosaurs. I had never been here before. The Enlightenment was Athene’s territory, it had never been mine. “Cirey!” said Pico happily.

“Both influenced by Greek originals and influential on buildings in the City, I think,” Sokrates said, looking at the chateau with his head on its side.

“You’re absolutely right,” I said.

“So why did Athene bring you here?” he asked Pico.

I gave our clothes the illusion of eighteenth-century finery. It was one of the most gorgeous eras for men’s clothing. It amused me to dress Sokrates in peacock colors and put a huge curled and powdered wig on him. The same costume suited Pico ridiculously well, much better than the monk’s habit or even his kiton, as if this were the era where he should have lived. The books he still clutched under his arm didn’t even look incongruous.

“To talk to Voltaire and Emilie. Voltaire is very like you,” Pico said to Sokrates. “Another marvelous gadfly. He wrote a play about you. Athene and I spent two wonderful days here. There was theater, there was science, there was debate, and they’re thinking such wonderful things—what time is it here, Pytheas? Can we get hold of a copy of the Encyclopédie while we’re here?”

“The first volume doesn’t come out until next year,” I said. “Besides, it’s in French.”

“I can speak French, though it’s changed a bit, and we sometimes needed to use Latin to be clear. But I can certainly read it reasonably well.”

Sokrates was examining his clothes. “This is the future?” he asked.

“Your future, yes, more than two thousand years after you were born.”

“And after your time too?” he asked Ikaros.

“Yes, about two hundred and fifty years after I was born. But a hundred years before Maia and Adeimantus were born, and three hundred years before Klio and Lysias.” Pico looked energized by the thought. “There’s so much history, so many places and times!”

Sokrates smoothed the burgundy velvet of his sleeve. “What a strange place.”

“I’m looking for Florent-Claude,” I said to Pico. “Do you know him? Athene describes him as Emilie’s widower.”

“Emilie’s dead?” Pico looked sad. “She was so wonderful, a scientist and a philosopher in an age where it was so hard for women to be anything but hostesses at best. She should have been in the Republic.”

“Do you know Florent-Claude?” I repeated.

“Yes. I met him. She was with Voltaire when we visited, but Florent-Claude was happy with the situation. It was almost like being in the City of Amazons.”