“Because Maia said something that indicated that you might not know it,” Father said, sitting back blandly. I frowned at him. Had Maia told him about Ikaros saying she didn’t love anyone? But how did that relate to other people being real? Father bit into his cake. “Good quinces you have here.”

Ikaros recovered his poise. “Tell me about Kebes. You found the Goodness Group? All we’ve had is rumors.”

“Shouldn’t I wait for the others?”

“Then what should we discuss while we’re alone?” Ikaros was wary. There were a few people working in the kitchen, laughing together as they made an early start on dinner, and one old woman sitting drinking by the window, out of earshot.

“My plan for ending the art raids involves returning everything to the original city and redistributing it based on population, with a certain amount of the more portable art moving between the cities on a regular cycle. The other cities have agreed to this, which means that you have the head of Victory, because nobody who had it would agree, not to me, not about this.”

“So it wasn’t Kebes?”

“You know it wasn’t. Stop playing games.” Father didn’t take his eyes off Ikaros for a moment. Ikaros was looking at Father, but he didn’t seem to be focusing on him.

“You’ve been swearing blood and vengeance on whoever has the head,” Ikaros said. “I’d be a fool to admit it if we had it.”

“As you may have heard, I took vengeance on Kebes. That’s enough. Besides, while there are some circumstances where it’s appropriate, this isn’t one of them. The important thing is to stop wasting lives and effort over this foolishness, not to make everything worse.” Father was utterly sincere.

“Our Young Ones enjoy the art raids. It makes them feel important and gives them a chance to let off steam,” Ikaros said. “And then they get out of control, and they feel important, and they have weapons. So you don’t need to tell me, because I can see exactly and precisely how things disintegrate into timarchy from here, and so I want to stop this as much as you do. But if we had the head, and I’m not saying we do, what would you suggest we do with it? We couldn’t return it with everything else.” He was telling the truth too, but Father didn’t look away from him to see me signal.

“And you can’t secretly keep it either, because then everyone will know that it wasn’t returned, and if that was kept back then other things might have been.” He hesitated, and continued in a lower voice. “And besides, she died for it.”

“Sneak it back into the temple,” I said. “Put it back where it came from, without admitting you ever had it in the first place.”