A shade, well-accustomed to toil, turns his arms to the wheel. The machine does not roar to life so much as it purrs; within its guts, arms flex and retract, and the well-oiled mechanism begins its work as it was intended.

The rings (which are painted in stygian blues, flecked with golden stars, strange symbols of goats and centaurs and rams traced and luminous, an anachronism among anachronisms) begin to rotate. This is an old way of imagining the cosmos, and thus dead, and thus here. And yet, beautiful, singular, it awakens, and each hole (which are given both value and assigned to one of the gods, which is an ill-advised decision) begins its journey around the luminous neon sun in its heart.

Some (Hermes, Aphrodite, Gaia) are small, quick, running on the inner track; some (Kronos, Poseidon, Hades himself) are stately, gliding like swans on the outer bounds of night. This is no trick; it is a forgotten mystery, something that would spell out secrets lost to time if only it was known for what it is.

But to the two girls, laughing in delight, watching wide-eyed, it is just a challenge that is as beautiful as stomping their feet in time to the falling arrows several tents down. This is a challenge worthy of two Olympians.

“Watch, Bella,” Dany says, hefting a ball and tossing it up and down, getting a feel for its weight, its nature, its use as a tool of victory. And she means it. Watch this, Bella. Let me show you what I can do. “I’m going— I’m going for [i]Mom.[/i]”

And she tosses for Hermes, whirling, clicking, on winged feet. And the ball arcs, and perhaps it’s the auspex, but perhaps it’s just Dany’s other eye, her timing (as she danced among the revels, as she ran on Baradissar, as she threw the discus in the training arena while Bella cheered from the benches), her [i]arete[/i]—

The ball catches the lip, rolls wildly in it like a horse’s eye, and then rolls in. Lights flash above in long-lost constellations, and Dany laughs loud and free and joyful. “See? You try!” And without pride, without guile, without anything but a shining hope, she tosses the next ball to Bella and rocks on her heels to watch her match it, without any doubt in her heart that Bella can, too.