“Back in the temple of Victory just outside the walls, where it used to be. And the strangest thing is that the gravel courtyard was raked this morning and there are no marks on it at all. It’s as if the gods brought it back.”

“Was it with the returned art?” The returned art was on display in the agora and the colonnades around it, forming an impromptu art exhibition which everyone had been enjoying in their spare moments. I’d been spending my spare moments reading to Ikaros, so I hadn’t had time for it myself.

“No,” Pytheas said. “I looked closely, as you’d expect. The head of Victory wasn’t there. But you say now it’s back in the temple?”

“That’s right,” Sophoniba said. “It’s the strangest thing.”

We all trooped out to see it, and there indeed it was, where it had always been, serene, victorious, mysterious, in the niche against the back wall. Pytheas started to sing his ode again, and although the choir had dispersed many people joined in.

“It’s a Mystery,” Aurelius said to me as we were walking back.

“I certainly can’t understand it.”

“Do you think it was Sophia?” Manlius whispered behind us.

“I can’t think who else it could have been,” Sophoniba said. “There wasn’t a mark on the gravel, and it shows every mark.”

“If she’s still paying attention, what must she think of us!” Manlius said.

Back in the Chamber, the debate on art raids then resumed.

Pytheas began. “After the Last Debate, when the new cities were founded, we all agreed that we couldn’t divide the technology because we didn’t understand it well enough to move things, and all of it was needed here to function properly. We might have agreed to divide it with our brothers and sisters in any case, had it not been absolutely necessary to the lives of Crocus and Sixty-One. Their vital need for electricity was more important than anything. Secondly, the electricity keeps the library at a constant temperature, which isn’t just a comfort for us but a necessity for the preservation and safety of the books. That’s why we printed additional copies for the libraries in the other cities but kept the originals here.” He looked at the Lucians, all sitting in a group on the left-hand side now. “You weren’t present for that debate, but I feel sure you’d have agreed if you had been.”

There were nods among them, and some hands raised in other parts of the room, which I ignored. If people wanted to point out that the books were traded rather than given away, that would divert the argument. Let them wait.