I had tucked the paper into my kiton, but it seemed that now I was wearing my sea-gear again. I unsnicked my jerkin and to my relief found the paper in the inside pocket, along with a drawing Alkippe had made of a gloater on a plate. I took Athene’s message out reluctantly and handed it to Hermes. “I can’t read it,” I said. “I don’t even know the alphabet.”

He frowned down at it. “It’s not like anything I’ve ever seen. Some of these strange characters are Viking runes. Or they’re like runes anyway. And some of them are Saeli, but … no. I can’t make anything of it. I suppose she wrote it like this so Kebes wouldn’t be able to read it.” He ran his finger over the back. “Good paper.”

“It seems like ordinary paper to me,” I said.

“Then maybe she found it in your city.” Hermes handed the paper back to me, and I put it away next to Alkippe’s drawing. Here, outside time, I no longer felt tired. I was aware that I ought to, that I had been exhausted moments before in the agora of Lucia, but it had all fallen away from me. Did people sleep here, I wondered? My complex feelings about Kebes also seemed to be held at arm’s length, and even the disconcerting way Hermes had flickered from form to form didn’t upset me the way it would elsewhere. I liked the way my sensations and emotions felt a little detached. I wondered whether Thetis, who revelled in emotion, would hate it, and whether she’d ever have the opportunity to find out.

“Kebes couldn’t read it, but we can’t read it either,” I said.

“No. Maybe she wanted that too. Maybe I’ll be able to read it when we have it all together.” He sighed and leaned back on his elbow, displaying the whole length of his lovely body. “What an unpleasant person Kebes was. You dealt with him extremely well.”

“Thank you,” I said, slightly flustered by the approval in his face. “Can you not mention to Thetis and the others—especially Thetis—what he said about being my grandfather?”

“I don’t think we need to mention it. But why?”

“Well, in the City we always talk about him as if he’s a kind of monster, and nobody would like to think they were descended from him. Pytheas killed him. I think it would upset Ma and Thetis a lot to know. And it might not be true anyway.”

Hermes shook his head. “Athene wouldn’t lie outright. She deceived him anyway, letting his wishes affect what he thought she said. But that’s as far as she’d go. And if you prefer that I don’t tell the lovely Thetis, then I won’t.”