But at that moment when I saw my Young Ones coming back aboard full of power, I wanted access to my own power. And I could even have had it, if I really wanted it, far more power than my children had. I could return to being my whole self at any time, at the cost of this mortal life. I considered it for a moment, there on the deck. I could swim to where my priests were standing on the Delian shore watching the ship maneuvering out. I could sacrifice myself there—dying, as was poetically appropriate, where I had been born. I could return moments later in my full power. I just had to want it enough to give up my incarnation—and that meant wanting it more than I wanted to fulfill Simmea’s dying wish.

It was tempting, but only fleetingly. I looked down at the choppy sunset-hued sea between the ship and the shore. Simmea had taught me to swim. And Simmea had wanted me to stay in mortal form. She had some reason, and I felt sure she was right, whatever that reason was. Until I understood it and fulfilled it, or until I happened to die naturally, I would stay incarnate, even if it was inconvenient. Even when it hurt. Envy wasn’t pleasant, but it did teach me something about myself, even if it was something I didn’t much like. I was glad to have time to compose myself before there was a chance to talk to the Young Ones. I wouldn’t want them to know I suffered from such a mean emotion.

My priests were still standing on the Delian shore, looking toward the Excellence as the watch on duty brought her head around so her sails could catch the wind. I leaned out on the rail, smiling, and waved to them. They looked at each other in consternation, then back at me in dawning affirmation. They waved back emphatically. I was glad I’d been able to make somebody happy.

I was tempted to take up my powers again on Ikaria—not out of envy for the Young Ones’ power. I had thoroughly dealt with that annoying emotion by then. No, on Ikaria the urge came purely out of a desire to protect them. They were children, and there was so much trouble they could get into! With divine power there were so many things it was easy to get into and difficult to get out of. The things they thought of—walking on lava! Time travel! I didn’t want them burned up by lava, but far less did I want them stepping outside time and not being able to negotiate what they found there.

I tried to remember my own childhood. I’d had Mother and a whole set of goddesses shielding and teaching me. (That may be why I have always lived solitary since.) What I chiefly remembered were bounds set around my power, bounds for me to test, to encourage me to develop safely. From the moment I was born I had the power to destroy the world (I had the sun), and they shielded me until I had the judgment to understand that destroying the world would be unutterably stupid. They knew what I was to be. The other Olympians wanted me—well, except Hera, who didn’t want me or anything like me. They shaped me to fill the place in the pantheon meant for me. I like to think I have done better than that already, fulfilled far more than the promises and prophecies. And I am still trying to increase my excellence, and the world’s excellence.

If there were places destined for my children I did not know what they were. I wasn’t aware of any prophecies or expectations. They had to find their own way. I could give them advice and prohibitions and information. I couldn’t use my power to teach them, or to give them safe boundaries to work in, because right now when they needed it I didn’t have any power. It felt like letting them down. And yet, Simmea had wanted me to stay incarnate, at the cost of her own life. Could this be why? Could they need to learn without boundaries? As soon as I thought it I knew that this was insane. Simmea hadn’t known anything about the powers of a god except what I’d told her. She hadn’t known about Delos or what they would need. She was going on the information she had at the time, most of which I must have and some of which I might be able to discover if we ever caught up with Kebes. (Or whoever had killed her, if it wasn’t Kebes.)

I did feel like an idiot whenever I thought about it. What could I do, incarnate, that I couldn’t do as a god? I usually asked the question the other way around, for there were so many things I could do as a god that I couldn’t do as a human. I had become human to learn about will and consequences and the significance of mortal life. There were things I had learned, and no doubt there was more to learn. But as for things I could do better incarnate—beyond learning that it seemed to amount to suffering, and waiting. Perhaps there was something else Simmea wanted me to learn. But she had seemed so urgent—don’t be an idiot, she had said, as if her reason was obvious and imperative. She let herself die, she gave up her memories and our life together and the future we could have had. The least I could do was try not to be more of an idiot than I could help.

From Ikaria we sailed to Samos, and there we had our first solid news of Kebes. (I had the map with me. But I hadn’t shown it to anyone or even spoken about it.) There were no Samians in the Catalog of Ships. And the priests in Delos hadn’t known anything beyond “northeast” for Kebes. There was no sign of the Goodness. But there was a settlement here, where the city of Samos would one day stand. It wasn’t a mud-hut encampment either, like the primitive ones we had seen on Naxos and Paros and Mykonos. The buildings were made of well-mortared stone, with familiar pillars in the style it amused me to call archaeo-classical. Nor did it have the strange flat Kykladic statues, but rather a solid Renaissance-style statue of a goddess. The people didn’t run away or immediately attack us, though we saw a stir in the streets.

Maecenas dropped anchor just outside the harbor and immediately called a council meeting. Everyone who wasn’t part of the council looked enviously at us as we went down to Maecenas’s cabin. I was on the ship’s council because the Just City was an aristocracy—rule was by the best. And by the standards they were using, I was going to be selected as among the best on almost all occasions. I sometimes felt a bit of a fraud about this, as they were judging by human standards. But I was glad to be included in the council and have my voice heard.

“What do we do?” Maecenas asked bluntly. “This could be Kebes. Probably is. Do we attack? Or talk first?”

“Talk first,” Klymene said, a hair before me.

“We need to find out more,” I said, when she spread her hand to yield to me. “We don’t see the Goodness. It seems like a small place.”

“It’s as big as Psyche, and it has the same kind of look about it of something built without Workers but with our sensibilities,” Maecenas said. “And Kebes only took a hundred and fifty, and no Young Ones.”

“I don’t think this is it,” I said.

Everyone disagreed with me. As I didn’t want to tell them about the map, I couldn’t explain why I didn’t think so.

“It’s logical that it is,” Klymene summed up after a while.

“What we need is more information,” I said. “Whether this is Kebes or not, we need to talk. And if it is, we need to find out whether they raided us and took the head of Victory. We might be able to set up friendly relations, if not. And if it isn’t Kebes, we need to find out who they are.”

“Let’s go in then, and see,” Maecenas said. “If I send you, Pytheas, will you stay calm?”

“If I am an envoy, I will behave as an envoy,” I said, standing up and bumping my head on the cabin roof.

“I wasn’t challenging your honor, man,” Maecenas said. “Sit down. You go, and Klymene, and take Phaenarete and Dion. We’ll stay anchored right here, in bowshot. If there’s trouble, we’ll hear. But if there’s trouble, get back here as fast as you can.” Phaenarete and Dion were older Young Ones, strong, and well-trained with weapons.