“I don’t know this Thor. Where’s he from?”

“Asgard.”

Dismayed, Piers shook his head. Yet another world he didn’t know about? He was starting to think his time in the knowledge temples wasn’t well-spent. “I’m afraid I don’t know Thor. Is he your friend?”

Sophie laughed. “I don’t know him personally. I think you two would get along great, though, if you ever met.”

Piers nodded. He was always interested in meeting new people, especially if they weren’t out for blood.

“I can’t help thinking I’m in Attica,” he said. “Nothing else makes sense. Though…that doesn’t make sense, either. We all know Attica lost its magic. Unless the tales aren’t true.”

Sophie blanched. “Did you say Attica?”

The word obviously struck a chord with her. Piers could tell by the way she stopped. “Why? What is it?”

“You don’t mean the prison in Upstate New York, do you? The one where they had that horrible riot?”

He shook his head. “Attica isn’t a prison. It’s a world. Athena’s favored world—or that’s what we’re taught.”

She visibly swallowed. “Attica is the region around Athens. It’s a big city named after Athena.”

Hope jumped in Piers’s chest. “Is she there? Is that her main residence? I mean, other than Mount Olympus.”

Sophie couldn’t have looked more shocked if Hades had just come knocking from the Underworld. “It’s halfway around the world,” she whispered, “and the Greek gods aren’t…real.” She trailed off, squeezing her eyes shut. They popped open again, blue fire in a pale face. “Or I thought they weren’t real until a few days ago. All that’s just stories and myths. Ancient history—here.” She added here as though she couldn’t quite believe there was anything other. Piers knew better.

“Athena is as real as you and I. It’s the people of Attica that forgot her, not the other way around. When Atticans still worshiped the Olympians, the gods remained. And there was magic, not this technology you talk about.”

Her brows drew together. “Is there a way to contact Athena?”

Wariness stirred inside him. “Why would you want to do that?”

Sophie sat back, failing to look casual when, clearly, that was her misguided aim. She had no reason to pretend with him, and Piers would have to make sure she knew that. “Just say…hypothetically. Is it possible?” she asked.

He didn’t know where she was going with this, but he hated to disappoint her, especially with her thunderbolt-to-the-heart gaze so intense on him and her breath trapped inside her lungs. “I’ve prayed to Athena all my life and never received an answer. But that doesn’t mean she isn’t listening. She answers those she chooses to.”

Sophie grimaced. Her caged exhalation gusted out in a rush. “So how do you make yourself heard?”