“Joy to you, Aroo. And that’s right,” Jason said, making a creditable response to the head-bow. He’d been there the day Hilfa was trying to teach it to me. The memory of our shared laughter steadied me.

“So tell me about your gods?” Hermes asked Aroo, directly.

Aroo blinked her silvery inner eyelids across her eyes, and took a tiny step backwards. A tiny step was all she could take, because there was so little room, and now her back was to the wall. “We have four major religions,” she said, carefully, without unveiling her eyes. “Three of them have gods. Most of us here prefer the fourth.”

“But you’re not used to gods showing up at parties?” Hermes asked, and giggled. He couldn’t be drunk on that over-watered wine, unless he’d been here for a long time.

“Religion is for us a more private thing,” Aroo said, sounding very much like Hilfa now. “We do not have people enact the roles of gods, no, nor do we worship in public as part of civic life the way humans do. There are those who could instruct you, but I am not one of them.” She closed her eyes completely now, lowering the colored outer lids.

“But—” Hermes began.

“Enough,” Dad said, sternly. “You’re making Aroo uncomfortable, and she is a guest here.”

I wouldn’t have cared to refuse Dad when he spoke in that tone, but Hermes had another laughing objection on his lips when Aroo suddenly opened her eyes and fled, thrusting her empty cup at Porphyry and backing out through the door of the sleeping house and into the street. Porphyry took the cup, turned it in his hands with a strange gesture, then nodded to Hermes. “I see,” he said, at his most gnomic. Porphyry is my uncle, and I love him, but he can also be one of the most infuriatingly enigmatic people on the planet. “I will speak with you tomorrow.” Then he vanished, still holding the cup. Hermes kept smiling but did not speak.

At that moment, Alkippe came in from the garden and began wiggling her way across the room towards us. Hermes smiled over at the child as she approached, then paused. For the first time since I’d known him there was no smile twitching at the corners of his lips.

“Your daughter?” he asked Thetis, uncertainly.

“My niece. Your step-great-grandniece.” Thetis was smiling again, but Hermes still looked grave. I saw a family resemblance between him and Pytheas, not in feature, but in his expression as he looked down at Alkippe as she approached. I didn’t know what to do or say. I hadn’t imagined that he’d recognize his connection to her.

“Your daughter, I think,” Dad said. He sounded matter-of-fact about it. Jason’s eyebrows rose into his hair. Thee gasped.