“She figured it out herself,” I said, proud of my mother. I’d heard the story of how she’d figured it out many times, from both my parents.

“And what happened on Delos?”

“Kallikles and Phaedrus and I found a spring and drank from a cup, and then we had powers. Different powers. Phaedrus can heal and control the volcano, and Kallikles has lightning and weather powers.”

“Lightning? Amazing. But they can’t fly?”

“They can walk on air, but I’m the only one who can fly properly.”

“And why can’t you tell anyone? Will you lose the powers if you do?” He seemed eager and enthusiastic.

“No, just that everyone will know we’re freaks. Father says he wants to live a normal life as best he can.”

“But my burning building question made you cry because in that situation you’d have to give yourself away?”

“Of course I would. I couldn’t just stand there.” I rubbed my eyes hard to stop myself crying again. “I don’t know if I can live a normal life, with powers. It’s going to be hard. I already used them, in the battle in Lucia. I flew over a man who was attacking me. People thought it was a leap, but really it was flight. And Phaedrus healed people. Aristomache had broken her arm, but he healed it and said it was just a bruise, that kind of thing.”

“And Kallikles?”

“He struck an attacker with lightning, and he made the wind change so that the burning boat burned the Goodness instead of the Excellence. But people didn’t know it was him. They thought it was Zeus.”

Porphyry shook his head. “I don’t see how you can keep powers like that secret, long term, if you use them. And you can’t help doing it, when something happens like that. It would be better if people knew and could plan for it. And maybe Pytheas ought to talk to Ikaros about being Apollo. Ikaros would be so interested. He’d instantly work out a way to make it fit with the New Concordance.”

“But then people would always be pestering him about it.”

“And people would always be asking you to get kittens out of trees.”

I laughed. “And taking messages between cities, like you said.”

“If it turns out that you can fly that far.”

“I don’t know whether I can. I need to practice. But for now, do you want to go to Delos and get some powers of your own?”

He grinned. “Yes, definitely, as soon as I possibly can. It would increase my excellence, and also be a ton of fun. But I’m not going to promise to keep them secret and not use them for the good of humanity.”