“My wise daughter, in her chaste and foolish way, is in love with you. Only with your mind, I hasten to add. But I think it would be fair to say that she is in a state of unrequited agape with regard to you.”

“Father, we all have favorites,” my own father said. Maia laughed. Ikaros was staring at Athene in complete astonishment. “It helps to have conversations with them about it and find out what they want,” Father went on.

Athene looked up from her shield and rolled her eyes at Father. “It wasn’t that kind of thing. There’s no comparison. I just—he was so bright and so young and he did pray to me for it, and lots of other people had too, and it all seemed as if it would be so interesting and so much fun,” she said. “Nothing like your romances at all.”

“Not unrequited,” Ikaros said, passionately, as soon as she had finished speaking. “Never unrequited. I have loved and sought wisdom all my life—and you, Sophia, from the day I saw you.”

“Then why did you betray me?” she asked, her gray eyes hard as flint.

“With Sokrates? Or by saying you were an angel?” he asked.

“That there are multiple possible occasions does seem indicative of problems,” Zeus said.

“But I loved you all the time.” He didn’t look away from Athene, and he absolutely meant it.

“You betrayed me when, just before the Last Debate, you turned away from reason and said will and love could be enough, you didn’t need comprehension!” Athene said.

“Oh.” Ikaros looked abashed. “That was just a theory, and I was just wrong. Simmea said it was mystical twaddle, and I realized she was right as soon as I read Aquinas again. But even then I never stopped loving you.”

“I am reason, you idiot,” she said.

“I am human and make mistakes, but I always try again to serve you and be worthy of you,” Ikaros said. “You have always been my goal and my delight.”

“Touching as this is, we have serious business,” Zeus interrupted.

“He is my votary. He prayed to me when he could have been burned at the stake for it,” Athene said, turning to Zeus. “And others too. Ficino. Aristomache. Maia.” She gestured to Maia, sitting primly on the grass listening intently. “They loved our world, and their own worlds held too little to fulfill their souls. I wanted to see what they would do with their imagination of our world, and Plato’s vision.”

“Plato’s Republic,” Zeus said. “Three hundred philosophers and classics majors. Ten thousand slave children. Lost artworks from all of time. Robots. The head of the Winged Victory of Samothrace.”

“All the books,” Ikaros put in. “We rescued all the books from the Great Library of Alexandria.”