“I wasn’t ever in any doubt about whether the temple liked me. I was invited.” Whether the temple guardian liked him was a much more dubious possibility. The temple had opened to Adam at a touch. The guardian had very nearly skewered him. And Adam was pretty sure he wasn’t making any progress at winning that guardian over. At this rate the knives were going to come out again.

He reached out to the statue, drawn to it, hesitated, and then remembered what Alec had said about permission. The temple wouldn’t let him see anything he wasn’t allowed to touch. Laying his palm on it, he felt a sense of serenity and power thrumming through the stone. “Αθήνα γλαυκῶπις,” he murmured, using the Homeric epithet because it was the one he knew.

“Is she real?” he asked, turning back to Alec. “Like your angel?”