“Well, that was fun. Thank you for letting me work with you, Jason. Do you need help getting her across to the slips?”

“Marsilia and I can manage if you want to go back, but if you’d like to bail a bit more it would be handy,” I said.

“When I go back, everyone will want to argue with me or interrogate me,” he said, picking up the bailer again. “I’d much rather spend an hour bailing in the dusk.”

“Well it’s more my idea of fun too,” I said.

Porphyry, the most powerful god on Plato, settled down to bail. Marsilia took the tiller this time, and we sailed neatly across the harbor, the wind with us now and no difficulty except avoiding the boats as they came in and cut across our bows. Once there, a Worker called Barnacle came and helped haul her out.

Barnacle is named after barnacles, the little scale-like things that like to attach themselves to the bottom of boats and have to be scraped off. Dion says the barnacles on Plato are so different from Greek barnacles that we shouldn’t give them the same name, because they’re flat and symmetrical. But it doesn’t matter, because all the Platonic sea creatures we’ve identified have formal names, which are, for some bizarre reason, all in Latin. Then they have everyday names in Greek which are either descriptive or echo whatever Earth thing they’re most like, whether they’re exactly like it or not. So if barnacles and kelp on Earth were different from ours, it doesn’t matter very much, nobody is likely to confuse them, and if they do we have the long Latin names for disambiguation.

Barnacle fussed over the leak, and said, as I’d suspected, that we’d need some new planking. He promised to get to it right away, and got started hauling her out of the water and into the dry dock. Workers are really good at that kind of thing. So we left her there and walked all the way back around the harbor, talking on the way about boats and boat repair. It turned out Porphyry worked on a fishing boat called Daedalos with two of his nieces. “Why did you call her that?” I asked.

“Well I wanted to name her after Ikaros, but that seemed rather an unfortunate name for a boat,” he said. We laughed. “Ikaros is my sister’s father. He was family when I was growing up, always in and out, as well as being my teacher.”

“Is it strange to see him again?” I asked.

“I knew I would, though I didn’t know exactly when. I prefer not knowing too much.”

“Jathery says it’s uncomfortable being caught by Necessity,” Marsilia said.

Porphyry frowned. “No, Necessity’s wonderful. Necessity is what keeps everything from happening at the same time. My gifts—well, we take what we’re given. I wanted to be able to fly, like Arete.” He sounded wistful.

When we came to Samos I invited the others in for dinner, but they said they should go to Florentia and catch up with their family. “Dad will think we’ve drowned if I don’t show up,” Marsilia said.

“And that’s if Ikaros and Sokrates remember to tell him where we went,” Porphyry said.

“Will they show up to eat in Florentia like anyone else?” I asked, trying to picture it.

“Well I suppose they might go to their old halls, but I expect they’ll go to Florentia tonight,” Porphyry said.

“But they’re so recognizable!” I said.

“Yes, true, but they also like debating people. I can’t imagine either of them hiding,” Porphyry said.

“We should have thought of that and asked them to,” Marsilia said. “Oh well, too late now. Unless Dad thought of it.”

“Well, they’re here. I don’t know why, and I don’t know whether they mean to stay,” Porphyry said. “But you’re the one organizing the debate on whether we’re right to keep divine secrets.”

Marsilia looked surprised. “You’re right. It is the same kind of thing. And even though Sokrates was there this morning in Chamber, I was automatically assuming it was better to keep it quiet from everyone else, without examining it at all. Huh. That’s terrible of me!”

“You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself, Marsi,” Porphyry said, and that was the first time I’d ever heard her called by that nickname. “You’ve thought of it now, and there’s plenty of time to examine it.”

“I’ll see you in Thessaly later,” I said.

I ate dinner in Samos with Dion and Hilfa and the kids, like every day. We talked mostly about the boat, and how long Barnacle thought it might be before she’d be seaworthy again. They had almost finished eating by the time I got there, but they stayed at the table nibbling on apples and nuts while I ate my ribber and noodles, to be friendly. Then Hilfa and I set off for Thessaly.

“Do you think they’ll have come back?” I asked as we walked up towards the city gate, the same route I’d taken with Thetis the day before.

“Yes.”

“Do you think Athene will be there?”

“Yes.”

“Are you basing this on logic, or is it only what you think?”

“But Jason, you asked me what I think!” He gave me his real smile, and I noticed his pink markings were standing out distinctly again. “I think They will come back because They are gods, and the world is still here, and there’s nothing to be done about it if They do not. And I think Athene will be there because She will come for Ikaros.”

Marsilia opened the door to us. “They’re here!” she said.

My knees sagged with relief. I hadn’t realized how worried I had been until the burden was lifted. “So Alkippe is all right?” I asked.

“Yes,” Marsilia said, her face going blank. “Gla said that had been taken care of, so now it’s out of the way.”

I put my arm around her, as I had supported Thetis in her weeping the day before. I didn’t normally do this kind of thing with Marsilia, but it didn’t normally seem as if it would be welcome. I never knew two such different sisters. Marsilia leaned into me for a grateful instant, then moved away to intervene in an argument between two of her uncles that was becoming heated.

As I looked around the room, which was only about half as full as the day before, I felt filled with social anxiety. Almost everyone in Thessaly was a god or a close connection of a god, and none of them were people I knew. Thetis was sitting laughing with her mother, she didn’t even glance at me. Why was I invited to this party? I accepted a cup of wine from Kallikles, Pytheas’s son who was in charge of lightning and electricity. “I recognize you now, you’re the fellow who works on the boat with Marsilia,” he said.

“Jason,” I said. “And this is Hilfa, who works with us too.”

Hilfa took his wine, and we escaped through the fountain room into the garden. It was cool out, but not bitingly chilly like the night before. Crocus was looming large in the corner, talking to Pytheas and Sokrates, who was waving his arms about. Over in the other corner, where there was a carved herm, Athene and Ikaros were deeply engaged in conversation with Neleus and a stranger, a beautiful woman with teased-up hair, dressed in a green and black stripy thing. She looked over at us, and I saw she had bright Saeli eyelids, and at once realized who she was.

Gla left the others and came towards us. As gla walked across the garden gla changed with each stride, growing taller, gla hair and clothes and female body fading away. As gla reached us gla had completely transformed and was entirely Jathery again: huge, naked, greenish-gold, with very distinct dark markings writhing across gla skin. Hilfa tried to hide behind me.

“Joy to you, Jathery,” I said, and tried to think how to follow this. “I see you’ve returned safely. And found Athene too.”

“I’d like to speak to Hilfa for a moment, if you’ll excuse us,” gla said.

“I don’t think Hilfa wants to speak to you,” I said, though it was difficult to refuse gla, especially as gla made gla request seem so reasonable. The best of their gods? I hated to think what the others must be like. “I think Hilfa’s terrified of you. I think all the Saeli are. How does a god of knowledge come to be so frightening to gla people?”