The next day we moved on to Psyche. Psyche had been built entirely by humans, with no Worker assistance, and it bore a certain resemblance to Marissa and the other Lucian cities. They had lots of art visible, almost all of it stolen from us. The city was arranged in concentric rings around a small hill, and consequently was very difficult to navigate. It was supposed to be the physical model of the soul, but if so my soul didn’t understand it.

We were not offered guest-friendship—partly, we guessed, because of Euklides leaving. Psyche accepted applications for citizenship but did not allow emigration. We ate and slept aboard the Excellence. The ship felt strange. It had a different crew, people who had not been on the voyage, and who seemed like usurpers in the place of friends and familiar faces. A pimply ephebe only a year or two older than me kept sprawling on the coil of rope where Erinna and I had sat the night Kallikles told us about the Naxians, and I almost wanted to push him overboard for his effrontery.

In Psyche, Father had to meet what felt like an infinite number of committees. In direct opposition to Sokratea, Psyche was top-heavy with Masters. In addition, they denied women a place in public life, so everyone we met was male. Lots of them lied, though maybe I shouldn’t call it lying when people blandly assure you that they understand and sympathize. They were frequently and habitually insincere. They were also obsessed with numerology. I knew a little of it from Ficino, whose loss the people of Psyche genuinely regretted. Eventually, after days of obfuscation, Father had a meeting with a man called Aurelius who seemed to have the ability to make decisions. Father persuaded him to send envoys to the conference. It then took days more to persuade them to send their art, and we had to agree that it would be sent under armed guard and with hostages pledged for its return.

They wouldn’t let us sing before their Assembly, but we sang in the agora on the day we left. It wasn’t official. We just walked through the agora and stopped and began to sing. People clustered around, naturally, more and more of them, women as well as men. Afterward everyone tried to hug us and touch us—it felt very strange. Father said it was because they’d been moved and they wanted to make a connection. Many of them came to the quayside before the ship left, so we sang it again standing on the desk of the Excellence. On the last chorus, they joined in on “When the time comes to defend,” startling me.

“Wait until you hear the full choral version,” Father said, afterward. “Phaedrus is rehearsing them. They’ll sing it at the conference.”