“About two years ago, after the Panathenaic Festival, she came to me and Thetis in the sanctuary when we were putting the new cloak on her statue.” I could remember it clearly. She’d come into the room carrying her owl, and it turned its head to watch us as she moved. She was much taller than any human. There are lots of stories about Athene in the City, some good, some not so good. Thetis had clutched my hand so tightly I’d had marks for days. “She said we were her worshippers, and this was her city. I was a priest that year, remember?”

“Priesthood is a civic function here, like in Rome,” Pytheas put in. Hermes nodded dismissively.

“She gave us a kind of woven box to look after,” I went on, remembering the weight of it in my arms and the strange weave, and the tilt of her head as she spoke. “She told us not to open it unless we heard she was lost, and then we had to both be together. And she asked us not to tell you until that happened.”

“So which one of you opened it, and how long did it take?” Pytheas asked. “And why in all the worlds didn’t you tell me?”

“How did you know we already opened it?” I asked.

“Human nature,” Pytheas said. “What was in it?”

“Hilfa,” I admitted.

“Hilfa!” Pytheas repeated. I had never seen him look so taken aback.

“Who’s Hilfa?” Hermes asked. “And where is he?”

“He’s a Sael,” Pytheas said. “One of the aliens. I’ve met him a time or two. He seems perfectly normal for one of the Saeli, which is to say very peculiar indeed.”

“We didn’t expect it would be a living being,” I said. “We thought we could look to see what it was and close it again until it was necessary. Or if it was something dangerous to the Republic we could tell somebody. Athene hasn’t always been our friend.”

“And don’t you know the story of Pandora?” Hermes asked.

I looked at him blankly.

“No, that’s one of the stories they left out,” Pytheas said. “Not a good example, and Plato didn’t believe people learned excellence from awful warnings. So what did you do when you opened it and it turned out to be Hilfa?”

It was my turn to look down guiltily. “We arranged for him to have somewhere to live and a job and education, as if he were any Sael who had decided to stay behind.” I glanced at Hermes. “That’s always happening. The Saeli like Plato, and lots of them stay, though usually they live in pods, not individually. But it was easy.”

“And you didn’t tell anyone?” Pytheas demanded.

“I’m not completely irresponsible. It was two years ago. I told Dad and Klymene.” They had been consuls that year.