Pytheas shook his head at Ikaros. “Yes. But be here when we get Athene back.”

“And then she’ll need me,” Ikaros said, resignedly.

“You might want to go to Thessaly for the night. Porphyry’s there, or he was when I left,” Arete said.

“In Thessaly? My house?” Sokrates asked.

“Well, it’s been my house for the last sixty years,” Pytheas said, awkwardly. “I hope you don’t mind. Simmea and I moved in there as soon as we decided to allow families. But you can have it back now if you decide to stay here. You might prefer Sokratea, or the City of Amazons.” Then he grinned. “Ikaros, if you’re going to Thessaly, go along the street of Hermes. That way you can pass the Ikarian temple. I can’t wait to hear what you think of what they’ve made of your New Concordance.”

Ikaros’s face expressed his consternation. Pytheas laughed.

“They do insist on being called followers of the New Concordance. It’s only everyone else who called them Ikarians,” Marsilia said.

Marsilia and Thetis and I moved towards the door. “Do I need to stay with you to be an anchor?” Hilfa asked.

“You need to stay alive, and preferably on Plato,” Arete said. “Don’t worry. It isn’t something you have to do, it’s what you are.”

“In that case, I will go to the Temple of Amphitrite and eat oatmeal,” Hilfa said.

“I’ll go with you too, if I may,” Sokrates said. “Then when you’re done, Arete, you can find me there to take me to see Crocus. That way nobody but those who need to know will hear Athene’s dangerous message.”

“Thank you,” Arete said.

As he passed him, Sokrates put a hand on Pytheas’s arm. “Are you still trying to do your best for your friends?” he asked.

“Always,” Pytheas said. “And for the world.”

16. Marsilia

16

MARSILIA

I sat down again on the forest floor, which was soft and springy beneath me, with its now-familiar loamy scent. It felt comfortable to be outside time and in this grove. The air here was perfumed with the scent of fresh green growth. It was a delectable springlike temperature, warmer than Plato and cooler than Greece. The leaves moved overhead, casting a wavering stippled shadow down on us. Hermes lowered himself gracefully beside me. “Let me see it,” he said. I glanced at him. He was again changing disquietingly from shape to shape from moment to moment as the light dappled him—a Sael, a dark-skinned woman, a light-skinned woman, a different Sael, an animal, a child. Then he became himself, solid and gorgeous and so real beside me that it was hard to believe he had ever been anything else.