I went to Florentia for breakfast, and as always when I went in my eyes sought for Ficino, and as always now failed to find him. I wondered whether I’d always do that, whether when I was myself ninety-nine I’d still half-expect to see him somewhere about the hall. Before I could sit down, Baukis and Erinna brought me a crown of flowers they had made. “Neleus and I collected the flowers and Baukis wove it,” Erinna said. It had tiny wild roses and long-stemmed daisies and little dark-blue hyacinths and their leaves. It was lopsided, but I didn’t care. Baukis hugged me, and I looked over her shoulder at Erinna. “Welcome to adulthood,” she said, awkwardly, and smiled. I put the wreath on, and then Maia came up and started to fuss with my loosened hair and straighten the wreath for me. I hardly had time to gulp down my porridge before it was time to go.

We walked to the Temple of Zeus and Hera in a big crowd. My whole family was there—Father, and all my brothers, including Porphyry and Alkibiades. Neleus was wearing Ficino’s hat. In addition we had Rhea and Diogenes, and Nikias, who probably should have been counted as family. All my close friends came—Maia, Crocus, Erinna and Baukis, and Baukis’s father Aeschines. Klymene showed up just as we were about to leave Florentia, wanting to be included in the family for the occasion. She hugged me, and I let her. Father didn’t want a feud. Kallikles was still very distant with her, and she was clearly hurt by this and trying not to show it. I missed Mother sharply and specifically then, because she would have known what to say to make it all right.

I patted the bronze lion as we went past it, for luck, and because Mother always did. It looked at me today as if it were hoping for something.

“I can’t believe how easily the conference went,” Klymene said to Maia. “Or how fast either. I expected it to take six or eight days.”

“Everyone was reasonable,” Maia said.

“You were a great judge,” Father said. Maia snorted.

We ran into Boas and Archimedes as we came into the plaza where the street of Demeter crossed the street of Dionysios, by the Temple of Demeter and Crocus’s great colossus of Sokrates laughing. They too had garlands and new kitons and clusters of family and friends with them. I was very glad to see them. We walked in our separate family clusters, like a procession.

“We don’t have all this fuss in Amazonia,” Porphyry said. “We do it individually, on our actual birthdays, in the agora, and our names are written down.”

“That sounds nice,” I said.