“I’m sorry. I couldn’t tell you. I don’t know what gla would have done to me,” Hilfa said. “I think gla made me, and could unmake me, to take back the part of gla power gla put into me.”

“None of this is your fault,” Marsilia said.

“We should not need to live in fear of the arbitrary power of the gods this way,” Sokrates said.

“The Saeli always do, all of us, always,” Hilfa said.

Marsilia took another swig of my wine. Thetis got up and stood behind Marsilia and started to rub her shoulders. Marsilia relaxed a little.

“It means Alkippe and I are siblings,” Hilfa said, tentatively.

“But that was always true,” Marsilia said. Hilfa stopped rocking entirely and sat up straight, staring at her.

“You’re also one of Simmea’s granddaughters?” Sokrates asked Marsilia. “You remind me of her.”

“Yes, I am,” Marsilia said. Thetis looked proudly down at her.

“And Jathery took you off on a treasure hunt through time for Athene’s papers?” Sokrates went on.

Marsilia gave him a small smile. “It was a bit like that, yes. But all the time I thought he was Hermes. Gla really is horribly good at deception. Even when I saw him changing between forms when we were outside time, I never questioned who he was.”

“You should always question,” Sokrates said.

Marsilia smiled up at him ruefully. “I’ll try harder to be a proper philosopher.”

Arete passed the papers back to Ikaros. “I wonder sometimes if it is harder for women to be philosophers, even for the Golds here. Everything always seems to be stacked against it.”

“Not always,” Ikaros said. “Did you ever know Lucrezia? She was in the City of Amazons by the time you were growing up, so maybe not. We lived together for a long time. She came from the Renaissance, from Rome. She and her brothers all had the same humanist education, all read Plato. But she was the only one to become a philosopher, and pray to Athene to come here. They had no time in their lives for it, after their education, none of them. But she did, being a woman, even though she was as much a political pawn as they were. For once the expectation of passivity and not being able to act was an advantage, it gave her time to study they couldn’t have.”

At that moment, the two gods reappeared, Pytheas restored to his usual size.

“Let’s put it together right now,” Pytheas said. “Where—ah, thank you, Pico.” He took the papers from Ikaros and pulled two more out the fold of his kiton.

“But what—” Ikaros asked.