Phaedrus lifted an eyebrow. “You know I am. I’m faster and stronger. We’re exactly the same age but I haven’t been able to wrestle with you in the palaestra since we were six.”

“It’s not fair!”

“It may not be fair, but it’s the way it is,” Kallikles said. He reached out a hand toward Neleus across the space between the beds, but Neleus ignored it.

“It’s not your fault,” Phaedrus said.

“Being heroes doesn’t make you better people,” Father said. He sounded immensely weary. “It might even make you worse. Knowing about it might. Simmea was afraid of that.”

“What does it mean, exactly?” I asked.

“Arete, even you must see that this isn’t the time for a Socratic debate clarifying terms!” Kallikles said, turning on me angrily.

“I don’t see that at all,” I said, keeping my voice even as Mother would have. “I think this would be a splendid time to discuss it properly. We all know we’re heroes, except Neleus, sorry Neleus, but we don’t know what that means in real and practical terms. We don’t know what difference it can make.”

Kallikles looked at Father, but Father was staring down at the blankets and said nothing.

“I’m going on the voyage,” Neleus said, in a calm and decided tone. “I appreciate that you all despise me, but I am going. I have more right than anyone, and more need to prove myself than any of you. If the Chamber won’t accept me for the voyage I’ll stow away. I am her son. I am Simmea’s only son, and I am going to avenge her.”

I made a little sound when he said he was her only son, because why should gender matter so much? But then I stopped myself from protesting, because he needed to be special, and when it came down to it he wasn’t a hero and I was.

There was another long silence. Then Father spoke. “Being a god made me worse at being a human being. She saw that. And she saw that being heroes might be a problem for you. And she was afraid that you would be unkind to Neleus because he isn’t, and that he’d suffer from that.” She had been right to worry about that, because we had been and he had. Father went on without hesitating, still looking down at the bed and not at any of us. “She thought that people needed more training to bring up children than we had had, but she understood that we had to bring you up and take responsibility for you. Most of the people with the training left after we voted to have families, and the rest were rushed off their feet.”