Barnacle is named after barnacles, the little scale-like things that like to attach themselves to the bottom of boats and have to be scraped off. Dion says the barnacles on Plato are so different from Greek barnacles that we shouldn’t give them the same name, because they’re flat and symmetrical. But it doesn’t matter, because all the Platonic sea creatures we’ve identified have formal names, which are, for some bizarre reason, all in Latin. Then they have everyday names in Greek which are either descriptive or echo whatever Earth thing they’re most like, whether they’re exactly like it or not. So if barnacles and kelp on Earth were different from ours, it doesn’t matter very much, nobody is likely to confuse them, and if they do we have the long Latin names for disambiguation.

Barnacle fussed over the leak, and said, as I’d suspected, that we’d need some new planking. He promised to get to it right away, and got started hauling her out of the water and into the dry dock. Workers are really good at that kind of thing. So we left her there and walked all the way back around the harbor, talking on the way about boats and boat repair. It turned out Porphyry worked on a fishing boat called Daedalos with two of his nieces. “Why did you call her that?” I asked.

“Well I wanted to name her after Ikaros, but that seemed rather an unfortunate name for a boat,” he said. We laughed. “Ikaros is my sister’s father. He was family when I was growing up, always in and out, as well as being my teacher.”

“Is it strange to see him again?” I asked.

“I knew I would, though I didn’t know exactly when. I prefer not knowing too much.”

“Jathery says it’s uncomfortable being caught by Necessity,” Marsilia said.

Porphyry frowned. “No, Necessity’s wonderful. Necessity is what keeps everything from happening at the same time. My gifts—well, we take what we’re given. I wanted to be able to fly, like Arete.” He sounded wistful.

When we came to Samos I invited the others in for dinner, but they said they should go to Florentia and catch up with their family. “Dad will think we’ve drowned if I don’t show up,” Marsilia said.

“And that’s if Ikaros and Sokrates remember to tell him where we went,” Porphyry said.

“Will they show up to eat in Florentia like anyone else?” I asked, trying to picture it.

“Well I suppose they might go to their old halls, but I expect they’ll go to Florentia tonight,” Porphyry said.

“But they’re so recognizable!” I said.

“Yes, true, but they also like debating people. I can’t imagine either of them hiding,” Porphyry said.

“We should have thought of that and asked them to,” Marsilia said. “Oh well, too late now. Unless Dad thought of it.”