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I giggled and waved. That got me another bubble and I laughed again. The fish swam off. He probably wouldn't remember me, but I’d remember him.

“Can you speak to fish?” I asked the boy.

“Yes,” he said, very casually.

I gasped. “That’s socool. I wish I could speak fish.”

“You can learn.”

I lit up. “Can I?”

The boy’s brows furrowed. “No one has before. But if anyone could learn, I’m sure it’d be you.”

That was a compliment. I was pretty sure. I wasn’t that used to hearing them. My cheeks heated anyway. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Daphne.”

And then I realized I didn’t know his name. “What’s your—”

“Daphne!” My mother yelled from inside.

“Follow me,” the boy said, leading me back through the doors then turning to close them after me. We moved out from behind the curtain and then my mother saw me.

“Where were you?” my mother asked tightly.

“I was looking at fish,” I explained.

She made a sound in the back of her throat. I didn’t know the word for it. “Of course. Well, you missed the end of dinner. We are leaving.”

I wanted to tell her that she was the one that told me to leave the table, but I just started to follow her. Before I could turn the corner back to the main hallway, I turned around. He was standing there, looking at me.

“It was nice to meet you,” I said.

“It was nice to meet you, too, Daphne,” he said. And then I had to go, even though I really just wanted to stay and stare at fish for the rest of the night. I didn’t like how cold my room at home was.

When I rounded the corner, my mom placed a hand on my shoulder, pushing me forward so that I had to walk faster. Her legs were so long, I had to run a little.

“Who was that mama?” I asked, as we walked to the big doors we came through earlier in the night.

“That’s Lukas,” she explained, her voice punctuating off the glass in the room. “You’re going to marry him.”

I didn’t know much about marriage. But it sounded okay with Lukas.

Because he was nice and seemed to hate lettuce and love fish as much as I did.

Chapter 1

Daphne, Age 24

There is an art to hiding your divinity.

I’d learned that over the years. You had to consciously reduce it, especially if you didn't want a human to faint when confronted with the full force of your power.

I figured out how to let it gradually hit them. Or not at all.

It’s what I’d done the last year. Keeping a lock on my power so that I was simply a woman walking by.

Not Lady Athena, not the goddess of wisdom. Or the spare goddess, that is.