“I’ll work on it,” Ikaros said. He looked at Athene. “I’ll work on it with Sophia’s help.” Athene was smiling at him, but he looked away from her, to me. “And I will always pursue excellence.”

Zeus’s gaze ran over my brothers. He looked down at Father, who was still clutching his knees. “Get up, son. I won’t do it. Though I can’t see where, under Fate and Necessity, the place can go. She wants posterity, you know.”

“Mortals all want posterity,” Father said, getting up and settling back on the grass next to Zeus. “It’s some compensation for forgetting when they go on to new lives. Mortality is so strange. You should try it sometime. It’s so very different in practice.”

“I look forward to hearing you sing about it.” Zeus put his hand on Father’s shoulder.

“They have equal significance, you know,” Father said. “All of them. They all matter to themselves, to each other.”

“I know. I wondered how long it would take you to figure that one out.”

Father leaned back on his hands. “There will be songs. A lot of songs.”

“Good. These are things the gods need to understand. If I am to send the lava—”

“Yes. Send me back to die with the city.” Father didn’t hesitate.

“And I,” Maia said, instantly.

“And I,” my brothers chorused.

“And I,” Ikaros said, only a heartbeat later.

“It’s not even your city anymore, you’ve just been given a research project by ever-living Zeus, you’re on Olympos with the gods, and you’re asking to go back to die?” Athene asked, incredulous.

“If it’s going to perish that way, I should go with it. And all of Kallisti is the Republic, all the different cities are our own visions of the Just City, and choices we have opened up in our interpretations.” Ikaros nodded to Porphyry, who grinned at him.

“Don’t worry, he won’t do that either,” Porphyry said.

Deep-browed Zeus turned his gaze on Porphyry. “Won’t I, grandson? How do you know?”

“You’re trying to find a way, by Fate and Necessity, to give us posterity. And I see one!”

“Oh Porphyry, you have your powers! Are they prophetic?” I asked.

“I’d much rather be able to fly,” Porphyry said. “And I don’t know whether it’s prophetic power, or just being outside time, but I can see time from the outside, and I see the threads and patterns of it, so I see where we could go.”

“What useful skills your children have,” Zeus said, to Father. “Did you think at all what you were doing with a whole clutch of them? Setting up your own pantheon? Will you go back with them even if it’s not to fiery destruction?”