He was flickering between forms again. I looked away from him and stared up at the branches crossing above us. So many kinds of leaves, each one so beautiful, green and gold and red. I took a deep breath and focused. Phila. “Phila was the daughter of Antipatros, who was Alexander the Great’s regent in Macedon when he went off to conquer the world. She was married to one of Alexander’s generals, but he died. Then after Alexander’s death she married Demetrios the Besieger, who was the son of Alexander’s general Antigonas. In the chaos years, she helped Demetrios and Antigonas administer their shifting empire. She was powerful in her own right, and she was educated. It’s not surprising Athene would like her. But my thought is that she was a Hellenistic woman, and she frequently traveled between Macedon and Asia Minor. She must have prayed to you for safe journeys. Couldn’t you give her one, and then show up to claim the paper?”

I glanced back at him. The look he gave me contained respect. “That should work. Come on!”

I scrambled to my feet and took his offered hand. We stood again in the intense heat and brilliant light of a Greek afternoon, made even brighter by the way the sun reflected from the sparkling water. Another harbor—did all of Earth consist of harbors and blue water? Another boat, this one low in the water with banks of oars. Perhaps it was a fabled trireme; I wouldn’t know. She had a ram at the front, and a slanted mast with a pale purple sail. Sailors were swarming all over her. One group of people were beginning to disembark. I’d never seen any of them before, but I had no difficulty telling which one was Phila. She was tall and stately, with a huge bosom and red hair. She was wearing the kind of women’s clothing you see on dressed statues sometimes, a long draped kiton with some kind of long cloak over it. Her clothes were good quality, and she had more jewelry than the other women in the group, but I could tell she was the important one by her bearing. She moved with the dignity of a woman who is used to exercising power. At home, I’d have unhesitatingly guessed she was a Gold. Here I wasn’t sure whether she’d even classify herself as a philosopher—and yet she ruled. We must be only about forty years after Plato’s death. And I had thought Lucia was strange.