I started to cry. I didn’t mean to, but I was remembering Erinna in the storm. Porphyry put his arm around me, not awkwardly like Father but as if he was used to being comforting to people. “What’s wrong? Is the debate making you miss Simmea?”
“I do have divine powers, and I don’t know what to do about the responsibility,” I sniffed.
“What, really?” he looked down at me, astonished, but not disbelieving.
“Stand up and I’ll show you,” I said, getting to my feet. There was nobody around. I leaped into the air, and swooped down to scoop him up, as I had Kallikles. Porphyry went rigid for a moment, and then he started to laugh. My tears dried in the wind and in the face of his delight.
“Take me right up,” he called. “Take me so high I can see the city from above, like an eagle.”
“But then they’d see us,” I said.
“How about over the mountain then? Could we fly over the crater? That would be so great.”
“I don’t think I can carry you for ten miles,” I said. “I don’t know. I never have and I don’t want to risk dropping you.” I went up, so he could see the stream and the hill it ran down and the City of Amazons in the distance. Then I made a series of loops around the tree and set him down again. “Sometime we could meet up on the mountain and I’d fly you over the crater, if you want.”
“I’d love that! That was such fun. The wind on my face. It was amazing. How can you do that? And why can’t you tell anyone?”
“I can do it because Father is Apollo, and I went to Delos and it woke my power.”
Porphyry sat down again, and I sat down beside him. “Father is Apollo? Incarnate? Like Jesus?”
“Yes, pretty much exactly like, as far as I understand it,” I said, pleased that he’d understood so rapidly. “But he doesn’t want anyone to know except family. I didn’t know whether he’d told you, but when we were talking about Delos he said he’d take you if you wanted to go. And he asked me to tell you about the powers.”
“It makes so much sense that he would be Apollo. Why did I never think of that? And … how could I possibly try to compete! Did Simmea know? Of course she did.” He shook his head in wonder.
“She figured it out herself,” I said, proud of my mother. I’d heard the story of how she’d figured it out many times, from both my parents.
“And what happened on Delos?”
“Kallikles and Phaedrus and I found a spring and drank from a cup, and then we had powers. Different powers. Phaedrus can heal and control the volcano, and Kallikles has lightning and weather powers.”
“Lightning? Amazing. But they can’t fly?”
“They can walk on air, but I’m the only one who can fly properly.”
“And why can’t you tell anyone? Will you lose the powers if you do?” He seemed eager and enthusiastic.
“No, just that everyone will know we’re freaks. Father says he wants to live a normal life as best he can.”
“But my burning building question made you cry because in that situation you’d have to give yourself away?”
“Of course I would. I couldn’t just stand there.” I rubbed my eyes hard to stop myself crying again. “I don’t know if I can live a normal life, with powers. It’s going to be hard. I already used them, in the battle in Lucia. I flew over a man who was attacking me. People thought it was a leap, but really it was flight. And Phaedrus healed people. Aristomache had broken her arm, but he healed it and said it was just a bruise, that kind of thing.”
“And Kallikles?”
“He struck an attacker with lightning, and he made the wind change so that the burning boat burned the Goodness instead of the Excellence. But people didn’t know it was him. They thought it was Zeus.”
Porphyry shook his head. “I don’t see how you can keep powers like that secret, long term, if you use them. And you can’t help doing it, when something happens like that. It would be better if people knew and could plan for it. And maybe Pytheas ought to talk to Ikaros about being Apollo. Ikaros would be so interested. He’d instantly work out a way to make it fit with the New Concordance.”
“But then people would always be pestering him about it.”
“And people would always be asking you to get kittens out of trees.”
I laughed. “And taking messages between cities, like you said.”
“If it turns out that you can fly that far.”
“I don’t know whether I can. I need to practice. But for now, do you want to go to Delos and get some powers of your own?”
He grinned. “Yes, definitely, as soon as I possibly can. It would increase my excellence, and also be a ton of fun. But I’m not going to promise to keep them secret and not use them for the good of humanity.”
“I think you’ll have to talk to Father about keeping it secret. And maybe to all of us. Because it doesn’t just affect you. If people know you have powers, they’ll want to know why.”
“I’ll talk to Father.” He looked as if he was bracing himself for it. “And Kallikles and Phaedrus. And it will depend what my powers are, and whether they’d be useful. I wish I could choose what they would be. I’d love so much to be able to fly. Would you take me up again? Just for a little bit?”
“Of course.” It was lovely to meet such enthusiasm. I swooped up with him in my arms. We went quite high, so he could see the landscape, and then I let him direct me along the stream toward a cove. I took him down again then and set him down gently on the black sand. I spiraled a few times around the cove before coming down in front of him, on the edge of the sea. Only then did I see a man sitting against the base of the cliff, with his arms wrapped around his legs, watching us. Ikaros.
He looked stunned and delighted. There was no point pretending it hadn’t happened, because he’d clearly seen the whole thing, and besides there were no tracks in the sand. “Joy to you,” I said.
Porphyry spun around. “Ikaros! Joy to you,” he stammered. “We were just … that is I … my sister was just showing me…”
“She’s an angel!” Ikaros believed every word he was saying, but that didn’t make it true.
I flew over to him in one swoop and sat down in the sand beside him. I pinched the skin of the back of his hand. “Real,” I said. “Not an angel.”
“So was Sophia—Athene—as tangible and corporeal as anyone else,” he said. “She never pinched me, but I brushed against her several times and touched her hands when we were acquiring art together. But if you’re not an angel, explain to me what you are, and I’ll figure out how it all fits together.”
I opened my mouth, but Porphyry interrupted before I could. “Don’t tell him anything.”
He was standing, with his shadow falling over me. He had composed himself in the walk across the beach and no longer looked worried. “What? Why?”
“For one thing it’s not only your secret, as you were just telling me. But I’ve just worked out the most important reason is that knowing for sure would break his heart.”
I frowned up at him. “How? You said before he’d work out how it fit together, and that’s just what he said himself.”
“Yes. But I was wrong. I know Ikaros a lot better than you do. He’s my sister Rhadamantha’s father, so he’s been around our house a lot all my life. He’s my teacher. He thinks he wants to know, but—”
“I’m right here,” Ikaros said, plaintively.
Porphyry looked at him and smiled. “Tell me truthfully you want Arete to explain it to you, instead of letting you work it out for yourself.”
“Oh!” Ikaros put his hand to his heart. “A hit! And from my own disciple!”