The day we left Ikaria I wanted to think about our powers, and what they meant, and what father had said about the gods, but there was no time for contemplation. We had our first squall on my watch. I stayed at the masthead looking for rocks, and calling them out when I did see them. The others were worn out adjusting sails and changing tack—all our practice had been in smooth weather. When your sails are wet and the wind backs as you’re trying to adjust them, canvas feels alive, as if it’s trying to get away from you. Erinna nearly fell into the sea helping Nemea wrestle with a sail. She saved herself by swinging on a rope. My heart nearly stopped when I saw it. There was no time to do anything, but my impulse in the moment before she caught the rope was to fly down from the mast and snatch her up. I had risen to my feet and was about to leap. On sober reflection I had no idea whether I could fly, let alone carry another person as I did it. I resolved to ask Father. But it felt like the right thing to do, the thing my instincts prompted, and in another instant I would have tried it.

In the excitement I nearly missed seeing a fishing boat scudding before the wind. Fortunately, it saw us and veered off. I kept watching for rocks and calling them out. By the time the clouds lifted our watch was almost over, and Samos was close at hand.

When Thano, my replacement lookout, came up I went down to the deck and hugged Erinna, intensely aware of the feeling of her body and fighting down the sensations in my own. “I’m so glad you’re safe!” I said.

“My own clumsiness that I slipped in the first place,” she said, but she did hug me back for a moment before letting go. “It shows how important all those drills are. My body knew what to do when there was no time to think.”

I felt nothing but relief that I hadn’t yielded to my own instincts. Whether I could have flown and caught her or not, I’d have revealed what I was to everyone. That wouldn’t have mattered if I could have saved her life, but what would she have thought? “I’d never been aloft in a storm before,” I said.

“That was no more than a little squall. If there’s any sign of a real storm we’ll find somewhere sheltered to anchor, I should think. Real storms can be bad for sailing ships. Like the one at the beginning of the Aeneid.”

“Or when they open the bag of winds in the Odyssey,” I said.

She grinned. “Isn’t it fun to think we’re sailing their very seas, before they sailed them?”

“What would have happened if you’d gone overboard?”