ASPASIA’S HOURGLASS: interactive, choose-your-path spy adventure

 ASPASIA’S HOURGLASS

In this interactive, choose-your-path spy adventure, a thirteen-year-old secret recruit named Agent Kairos races across ancient Greek locations to recover a stolen bronze water clock before a villainous collector named Eris can control history's forgotten voices. Aided by a local guide named Zoe, the young operative decodes clever mythological clues through Athens, Delphi, and Cape Sounion while collecting essential field items to outwit their pursuers. Ultimately, the narrative blends real historical landmarks and classical figures with fictional espionage elements to teach readers about the importance of uncovering silenced perspectives from the past.

PODCAST

A Choose-Your-Path SpyAdventure Through Ancient Greece

By Sean Taylor

Text © 2026 Sean Taylor. All rights reserved.

 

MISSION RULES (READ BEFORE ACCEPTING)

This is not a book you read from the first page to the last. You are the hero, and the story goes wherever you send it.

At the end of most sections, you will face a choice. Make it, then turn to the section number it names. Some choices lead to triumph. Some lead to soggy disaster. A few lead to disaster and triumph, usually in that order.

Here is what you need to know:

•         You are Agent Kairos. Kairos (KY-ross) is the ancient Greek word for “the perfect moment.” You are thirteen, you are the newest recruit of MNEMOSYNE (nem-AH-sih-nee), a secret agency of history-keepers, and you have never been more nervous in your life.

•         Keep a Field Kit. When the story says you have found an item, write it on a scrap of paper. An item found now may save you later.

•         Wrong turns are allowed. If the story sends you backward, it is because the best spies learn from their mistakes.

•         The history is real. The Hourglass, the agency, and the villain are invented. The places, the myths, and nearly everything you learn along the way are true. Check Fact or Fiction? at the back of the book to see which is which.

•         There are six endings. Only one is the best. Good luck finding it.

Turn to 1 when you are ready.

 

ACT ONE: THE HOUR OF WISDOM

Athens

1

MNEMOSYNE FILE 0001. CLASSIFICATION: BEYOND TOP SECRET. (THE TOP IS BELOW THIS.)

The black envelope arrives at 6:59 a.m., carried through your window by a pigeon wearing a tiny trench coat. You decide not to ask questions.

Inside, sealed with wax in the shape of an hourglass, is a brass tape recorder no bigger than a sandwich. You press PLAY. Static hisses like surf. Then a voice, rough as gravel and warm as bread, fills the room.

“Good morning, Agent Kairos. I am Director Daphne Argyros, and I have exactly ninety seconds to change your life.

“Twenty-five centuries ago, in Athens, there lived a woman named Aspasia of Miletus. Philosophers argued in her house. Generals asked her advice. The most powerful man in Greece, Pericles, listened when she spoke. History tried to forget her anyway. But Aspasia was clever. She built a machine to remember for her: a bronze water clock shaped like an hourglass, whispered about ever since as ASPASIA’S HOURGLASS. Its hidden rings hold a map to her lost archive. Every letter. Every lesson. Every argument. A thousand voices the world has never heard.

“The Hourglass was broken into three pieces and scattered across Greece: the Hour of Wisdom, the Hour of Prophecy, and the Hour of the Sea. Three nights ago, someone began collecting them. Her code name is ERIS, after the goddess of discord, who once tossed a golden apple into a wedding and started a war. She has a yacht. She has a fleet of drones. She has a henchman whose glasses contain a camera. And in seventy-two hours, she is holding an auction. The highest bidder will own the archive, and decide which voices the world is ever allowed to hear.

“You are the youngest agent MNEMOSYNE has ever sent into the field. You are also, frankly, the only one who can reach Athens before sundown. Your mission, should you choose to take it: find all three pieces of the Hourglass before Eris does.

“Should you be caught, the Agency will deny everything. Actually, no. That is old. Should you be caught, we will send snacks.

“This tape will self-destruct in five . . .”

The recorder begins to smoke. Four. Three. On the windowsill, the pigeon salutes.

If you accept the mission, turn to 2. If you decline and go back to bed, turn to 41.

2

Eleven hours, two airports, and one deeply mysterious airplane sandwich later, you step into Athens.

The air smells of warm stone, grilled lamb, and jasmine. Scooters scream down alleys no wider than a hallway. And above the rooftops, impossibly close, the Acropolis rises on its rock like a crown somebody forgot to take off.

Three days, you think. Three pieces. One city that has been building, arguing, and forgetting things for three thousand years.

Following your instructions, you find a café in the old neighborhood of Plaka and order a lemonade. You set a folded newspaper on the table. That is the signal. Nothing happens for six minutes.

Then a girl your age drops into the chair across from you, a scooter helmet still on her head, her backpack covered in owl stickers.

“The owl flies at noon,” she says, without looking at you.

You know this one. “But she sees at midnight.”

“Finally.” She yanks off the helmet and a cloud of dark curls springs free. “Zoe Papadakis. Local guide, scooter pilot, third-generation Keeper. My yiayia, my grandmother, taught me everything, including how to spot a spy in a bad hat.”

“I’m not wearing a hat.”

“Exactly. Terrible disguise.”

She slides a photograph across the table. It shows a scrap of ancient writing from the Agency’s files, and beneath it, one line of translation:

Where the owl keeps the city’s hours, eight winds hold their breath.

“The first clue to the Hour of Wisdom,” Zoe says. “Eris’s people have seen it too. We have until sundown.”

Turn to 3.

3

Zoe taps the photograph. “Okay. Think like Aspasia. She lived here in the fifth century BCE, about 2,500 years ago. She was brilliant, but she came from the city of Miletus, across the sea, and in Athens that meant she could never be a citizen or vote. So she had to be careful where she hid things.”

She counts on her fingers. “Owl: the owl is the symbol of Athena, goddess of wisdom and protector of this city. Keeps the hours: something to do with time. Eight winds: something with eight of . . . something.”

Three places come to mind, all within an easy walk:

•         The Parthenon, Athena’s great temple on top of the Acropolis. Zoe says it has eight columns across its front.

•         The Temple of Hephaestus, the best-preserved ancient temple in Athens, where the god of blacksmiths and fire was honored.

•         The Roman Agora, a quiet marketplace nearby with a strange eight-sided building covered in carvings.

Your watch ticks. The sun is not waiting.

If you head for the Parthenon, turn to 4. If you choose the Temple of Hephaestus, turn to 5. If you go to the eight-sided building in the Roman Agora, turn to 6.

4

You climb the Acropolis at a run, past sleepy cats and sweating tourists, and burst through the great gateway into a world of gold-white marble.

The Parthenon rises in front of you, enormous and glowing. Pericles, the leader of Athens, ordered it built around 447 BCE. The marble was cut from nearby Mount Pentelicus, and the work took about fifteen years. Inside once stood a forty-foot statue of Athena, covered in ivory and gold. Today the statue is gone. The columns remain.

You count them across the front. One, two, three . . . eight.

“Eight!” you whisper. “It matches!”

“Eight columns,” Zoe says slowly. “But where are the winds? Where are the hours?”

You search every shadow. No clock. No hidden panel. Only wind-polished stone and a hundred selfie sticks.

Then something glints at the edge of the crowd: a man in mirrored sunglasses, a tiny lens winking from the frame. He is not taking a selfie. He is taking pictures of you.

“Argus,” Zoe breathes. “Eris’s eyes. Don’t look.”

You slip behind a column. While you wait for him to pass, Zoe mutters, “My yiayia used to say Athens told time two ways: a shadow on a stone, or water dripping in a jar. What building did both, and had something to do with wind?”

Your brain clicks like a lock.

Turn to 6.

5

The Temple of Hephaestus stands at the edge of the ancient Agora, the great open marketplace where Athenians gathered to argue, shop, vote, and gossip. It was built around the same time as the Parthenon, and it has survived so well that you can almost hear the ancient hammers.

Hephaestus was the god of the forge. In some versions of the myth, he is the one who split open the head of Zeus with an ax so that Athena could leap out fully grown, wearing armor and shouting a war cry. (Zeus had a headache. Quite a big one.)

You count the columns across the front. “Six,” Zoe says. “Strike one.”

Inside, you find only shade and a few pigeons. You are circling the temple a second time when a tour guide’s voice drifts from a nearby group.

“. . . and for the best view of ancient timekeeping, my friends, do not miss the Tower of the Winds in the Roman Agora! Eight sides, eight wind gods, and one very old water clock!”

Zoe stares at you. You stare at Zoe.

“Eight,” you both say.

Turn to 6.

6

The Tower of the Winds is the strangest building in Athens: an eight-sided marble tower, taller than a house, standing among the ruins of the Roman Agora. An astronomer named Andronikos built it around the first century BCE. Inside it once held a giant water clock called a clepsydra (KLEP-sih-druh), which dripped away the hours. Outside, every wall has a sundial, and at the top of each wall flies a carved figure: one of the eight winds, each a god with a personality of his own.

Zoe frowns. “Wait. This tower was built three hundred years after Aspasia died.”

“Then the Keepers must have moved the piece here,” you say. “Hidden it somewhere new.”

“Keepers have been doing that for centuries.” She unfolds the Agency file. “Here’s the rest of the clue. The first hour hides behind the gentlest wind, who scatters flowers and brings the spring.”

You step back and study the carvings. Three of them have small, odd seams in the stone beneath their feet:

•         Boreas, the north wind: bearded and scowling, wrapped in a thick cloak and heavy boots.

•         Notos, the south wind: tipping a great jug and pouring water down the wall.

•         Zephyros, the west wind: young and light, in a thin robe, his cloak full of blossoms.

You will have only one try before the sun slips lower and Argus finds you.

If you press the seam beneath Boreas, turn to 7. If you press the seam beneath Zephyros, turn to 8. If you press the seam beneath Notos, turn to 7.

7

Click.

That is the sound of the wrong answer.

The floor tilts. Somewhere inside the tower, ancient bronze pipes groan awake after two thousand years, and a rush of cold water bursts out of a hidden channel and sweeps you and Zoe in a spinning, shrieking slide across the stones.

You come to a stop in the shallow ditch beside the wall, soaked to the elbows.

“Well,” Zoe says, spitting out a leaf. “The plumbing still works.”

The good news: nobody saw you. The better news: every wrong answer teaches you something. You now know that Boreas and Notos are not the gods this clue is about. The winds in Greek myth were not all alike. Some were gentle. Some were not.

Turn back to 6 and try again.

8

You press the seam beneath Zephyros, the gentle west wind who carries blossoms into spring.

Click. A panel the size of a book slides open in the marble, silent as a held breath.

Inside, wrapped in cloth, lies a bronze ring about the size of a saucer. An owl is etched on its face, wings open, eyes round as moons. Tucked beside it is a tiny scroll, the ink faded to the color of tea. Zoe reads the words aloud, her voice shaking:

“They will say I was only the shadow beside a great man. Do not believe them. Measure the hours yourself.”

You have found the Hour of Wisdom. Carefully, you wrap it and zip it into your jacket. Add HOUR OF WISDOM to your Field Kit.

Then comes a sound like a thousand angry bees.

You look up. Four black drones hover above the Roman Agora, red lights blinking. Beyond the fence, a man in mirrored sunglasses lifts a radio to his mouth.

“Run,” Zoe says, already running. “Left is the rooftops. Straight is the flea market. Down is the Metro. Pick!”

If you take the rooftops, turn to 9. If you dive into the flea market, turn to 10. If you descend into the Metro, turn to 11.

9

Zoe leads you up a rusted fire escape and onto the red clay rooftops of Monastiraki.

You have never run across a roof before. It turns out to be mostly about not looking down.

You leap a gap between two buildings and land in a patch of laundry. You vault a satellite dish. You startle a very large orange cat who clearly owns this neighborhood and wants you to know it. Behind you, the drones swoop and whine, but the clotheslines tangle their propellers, one by one. Zzzt. Plink. A bedsheet drops over the last drone like a ghost eating a toy.

Zoe slides down a drainpipe into a quiet courtyard. You follow, breathless, the Hour of Wisdom thumping against your ribs.

“Whoa,” you say. Between two chimneys, framed like a postcard, the Parthenon glows in the late sun.

“Never gets old,” Zoe says. “Come on. Safehouse.”

Turn to 12.

10

The Monastiraki flea market is a maze of tarps, brass lamps, leather sandals, rugs, and ten thousand blue evil-eye charms staring at you from every direction. It is a perfect place to vanish.

You duck beneath a stall just as a drone buzzes overhead. Beside you crouches an old woman with a sun-creased face, sorting coins in a velvet tray.

“Spies?” she asks, in English, without looking up.

“Tourists,” you say.

“Of course.” She smiles. “Tourists who run like thieves.” She presses something into your palm: a heavy silver coin, worn smooth. On one side is a helmeted head of Athena. On the other, a small, proud owl.

“A tetradrachm,” she says. “Four-drachma coin. Athens minted millions of these, and merchants trusted them from here to Egypt. The owl was Athena’s bird, and the whole world knew it.” She shuts your fingers over it. “Keep it. You look like someone who will need luck, or wisdom. Same thing, mostly.”

The drone swings low. The old woman casually tips a basket of evil-eye charms into the street. They roll everywhere, hundreds of watchful blue eyes, and the drone’s camera spins in confusion.

You and Zoe slip out the back.

Add the OWL COIN to your Field Kit.

Turn to 12.

11

You bolt down into the Syntagma Metro station, where the escalator is crowded with commuters and, strangely, with glass cases full of ancient pottery.

“They found all this while digging the subway,” Zoe pants. “Roads, graves, water pipes, whole workshops, buried right under the city. Athens can’t dig anywhere without bumping into the past.”

Two men in dark jackets are pushing through the crowd behind you. Argus’s men. You dodge behind a display of clay jars, then a cutaway of an ancient road, then a wall of tombstones that really should be somewhere quieter.

The train doors hiss. You and Zoe leap aboard at the last possible second. Through the window, the two men stand on the platform, red-faced, one clutching a poster of a Greek vase that they appear to have grabbed by mistake.

“Never run on an escalator past two thousand years of history,” Zoe says solemnly. “It’s rude.”

You laugh until your ribs hurt.

Turn to 12.

12

Zoe’s yiayia runs a tiny tavern three streets from the Agora, and behind its kitchen is a staircase that most people never notice. Up that staircase is the safehouse: one room, one long table, one ancient radio, and a wall covered in maps.

You unwrap the Hour of Wisdom and set it on the table. In the lamplight, the owl seems to blink.

The radio crackles. “Agent Kairos.” It is Director Argyros, sounding as if she has been awake for a month. “You found it. Well done. One piece down. Two to go. Do not let it go to your head. Your head has a great deal to do.”

Then the radio hisses, and a different voice cuts in. It is smooth and cold, like silver left in the snow.

“Hello, little Keeper.”

Zoe goes pale. You lean toward the speaker.

“I am Eris,” says the voice. “You have done what I could not: you found the owl. Thank you. I will take it from you soon. But I am a generous woman, so here is a hint. The second hour sleeps where two eagles met. I will save you a seat in Delphi.”

The radio clicks and goes dead.

Zoe stares at the maps on the wall. Slowly she puts her finger on a small town high in the mountains, a day’s bus ride away. “Delphi,” she says. “The Oracle. The center of the world.”

“Is it, though?”

“The ancient Greeks believed so,” she says. “And they had a stone to prove it.”

You fold the clue into your pocket. The sun is going down on Athens, the Acropolis glowing like an ember. Tomorrow the mountains.

Somewhere out there, sixty hours of sand are running through a very large hourglass.

Turn to 13.

 

ACT TWO: THE HOUR OF PROPHECY

Delphi

13

MNEMOSYNE FILE 0002. URGENT. DRAMATIC. SLIGHTLY ON FIRE.

At 5:45 a.m., a trumpet fanfare blasts from the safehouse radio so loudly that the teacups rattle. Zoe falls off her chair. You sit up in a blanket you do not remember getting.

“AGENT KAIROS!” booms Director Argyros. “The sand is falling! The clock is ticking! Somewhere in the mountains, the most famous prophet in the ancient world is waiting, and so is a woman with a yacht!

“Your next stop is DELPHI: a sanctuary of gleaming ruins on the slopes of Mount Parnassus, three hours north by bus. For over a thousand years, kings, generals, sailors, and farmers climbed that mountain to ask one question of the Pythia (PITH-ee-uh), the priestess of the god Apollo. She sat on a tripod inside his temple and answered. Her answers were famous. They were also famously confusing.

“Your equipment: one MNEMOSYNE pen that writes, records, and glows blue in emergencies; one backpack of emergency snacks; and one local guide with a scooter and no fear. Eris’s black car was spotted on the highway at midnight. She has a head start. You have a bus.

“Do not be late. Do not be seen. Do not, under any circumstances, ask the Oracle about your homework.

“This message will self-destruct in . . . oh, forget it. We are out of tape. Good luck.”

The bus climbs through olive groves that flash silver in the wind. Villages cling to the hillsides. Zoe sleeps with her mouth open. You watch the valley fall away beneath you, and the mountain rise, and your stomach does a slow, anxious somersault.

Turn to 14.

14

Delphi hangs on the mountainside like a city of ghosts. Terraces of broken marble climb the slope. Below, the valley is a sea of olive trees running all the way to a faraway gulf, glittering like hammered tin. The air is thin and cold and sweet. It is easy to believe you are standing at the center of the world.

In the parking lot sits a sleek black car with tinted windows.

“She’s here,” Zoe whispers. “Already.”

The sanctuary closes at sundown, and the light is already going honey-gold. You have three ways in.

•         Join a tour group shuffling through the main gate with a guide named Stelios, and slip away later.

•         Wait for dark and approach through the Castalian Spring, a rocky gorge outside the gate where ancient pilgrims once washed before visiting the Oracle. Zoe knows a shepherd’s path.

•         Find Dr. Katerina Vlachou, an archaeologist who has worked at Delphi for thirty years and who, according to the Agency file, is a secret Keeper. Zoe says she is usually near the Treasury of the Athenians.

If you join the tour group, turn to 15. If you wait for dark and take the spring path, turn to 16. If you look for Dr. Vlachou, turn to 17.

15

Stelios the guide wears a floppy hat and carries a flag shaped like a laurel leaf. “Follow me, my friends! Watch your step. These stones have been waiting two thousand five hundred years, and they are not in a hurry.”

You follow him up the Sacred Way, a winding stone road lined with the ruins of tiny buildings called treasuries. Each Greek city built one to hold its gifts to Apollo and, not by coincidence, to show off.

“And here,” Stelios says, at last, in front of a platform of huge stones, “stood the Temple of Apollo. Carved into its entrance, visitors read two famous rules. Know thyself. And Nothing in excess. Do you know what that means? It means: don’t be a show-off, and don’t eat all the baklava.”

Someone laughs. Stelios beams.

“And inside, the Pythia answered. Pilgrims believed Zeus himself had chosen this spot. He released two eagles from opposite ends of the earth, and they flew toward each other and met right here. A sacred stone, called the omphalos (OM-fuh-los), the ‘navel,’ marked the center of the world.”

Two eagles met, you think. Eris’s hint.

As the group drifts toward the theater, you and Zoe duck behind a column and hold your breath. Minutes pass. A whistle blows. A gate clangs. Then the mountain is silent, and the sanctuary is yours.

Turn to 20.

16

At dusk, Zoe leads you down a goat path to the Castalian Spring. A cold, bright stream trickles from a crack in a towering cliff, and the rocks are dark and slick and covered in ferns. It is so quiet you can hear your heartbeat.

“Pilgrims washed their hands and hair here before they climbed to the temple,” Zoe whispers. “They wanted to be clean before they asked the god a question.”

Beside the water grows a tall, glossy-leaved bush that smells like soup and sunshine. Laurel.

“Did you know,” Zoe says, “there’s a myth about that tree? A nymph named Daphne was running from Apollo, and she begged her father, a river god, to save her. He turned her into a laurel tree. Apollo was heartbroken. He made the laurel sacred, and that’s why victors at Delphi were crowned with its leaves.”

You pluck a single glossy leaf and press it into your notebook. Somehow, it makes you feel calm, as if it has been waiting for you.

Add the LAUREL LEAF to your Field Kit.

A stone wall, a quick hop, and you are inside the sanctuary, alone among the ruins as the stars come out.

Turn to 20.

17

You find Dr. Katerina Vlachou sitting on the steps of the Treasury of the Athenians, eating a pomegranate with a pocketknife. She is small and sunburned, with silver braids and a hat that has seen better decades.

“A Keeper in training,” she says, without looking up. “Zoe, you have brought a child.”

“I have brought an agent,” Zoe says.

“Hm.” Dr. Vlachou finally studies you. “I will help you, young one, if you can answer one question properly. Croesus, the king of Lydia, was fabulously rich and fabulously nosy. He asked the Pythia whether he should go to war with Persia. She answered that if he crossed the river Halys, he would destroy a great empire. Delighted, he marched. And what happened?”

She cuts the pomegranate in two, red juice dripping.

“He lost the war. His own empire fell. Now tell me: why?”

If you say, “The Oracle lied to trick him,” turn to 18. If you say, “The prophecy was true, but he assumed it meant Persia’s empire, not his own,” turn to 19.

18

Dr. Vlachou sighs the sigh of a woman who has heard this answer from every tourist for thirty years.

“Nearly everyone says that,” she says kindly. “But the Pythia did not lie. Her words were true. Croesus heard what he wanted to hear. He never asked, Which empire? He never asked, Whose? That is the lesson of Delphi, young one. Questions are only as good as the listening that follows them.”

She hands you a map of the sanctuary, marked in pencil, and presses a pomegranate half into your hand. It is the most delicious thing you have ever tasted, and you feel a little ashamed.

“The Oracle rarely lied,” she adds. “People often did.”

You thank her and move on, determined to listen better next time.

Turn to 20.

19

Dr. Vlachou lowers the pomegranate. A slow smile crosses her face.

“Exactly,” she says. “The Oracle was true. Croesus was careless. He heard ‘great empire’ and thought of Persia. He never considered it might be his. Most people spend their lives not asking that second question.”

She reaches into her satchel and pulls out a small, glossy leaf, still green, and tucks it into your jacket pocket.

“Laurel,” she says. “Apollo’s tree. We crown winners with it, and we give it to those who listen. Carry it well. It will remind you to ask better questions.”

Add the LAUREL LEAF to your Field Kit.

She stands, brushes seeds from her knees, and nods toward the mountain. “Now. What do you need?”

Turn to 20.

20

The sanctuary glows under the rising moon. Every shadow could hold a drone.

Zoe unfolds the Agency’s file and reads Aspasia’s second clue in a whisper.

The second hour sleeps in the navel of the world. Not the stone that stands where it was placed, but the stone that was moved to be kept.

“The omphalos,” you say. “The center of the world.”

“There are a few stones that could be it,” Zoe says. “I can think of three places to look.”

•         A stone copy of the omphalos, which stands out here at the ruins of the sanctuary, right where visitors can find it.

•         The old carved stone itself, displayed in the Delphi Museum just up the road. It is covered in a carved pattern like a fisherman’s net.

•         The Tholos at Marmaria (mar-MAIR-ee-ah), a graceful round building a short walk down the hill, round as a belly button.

You think hard about the words. Not the stone that stands where it was placed.

If you search the stone copy in the sanctuary, turn to 21. If you head to the museum, turn to 22. If you run down to the Tholos, turn to 23.

21

You run your hands over the stone copy, feeling for a seam, a latch, anything. The stone is cold and smooth and utterly ordinary.

“It’s a copy,” Zoe says. “They set it out here to show where the real one stood.”

Her eyes widen. “The clue says moved. And that means—”

Click.

Floodlights blaze on all around you. Argus steps from behind a column, his mirrored glasses flashing. Three drones rise from the shadows like angry hornets.

“You are so predictable,” he says. “Eris said you would pick the easy one.”

Zoe grabs your sleeve. You run. Up the Sacred Way, past the treasuries, along the stadium path, with drones whining at your heels. You skid through a gap in a fence and tumble into the grass beside the museum.

You lie on your back, gasping, staring at the stars. “That,” Zoe pants, “was not subtle.”

But it has put you exactly where you need to be.

Turn to 22.

22

The Delphi Museum is hushed and silver with moonlight. Zoe picks the lock with a hairpin in four seconds flat. You do not ask where she learned that.

In a quiet gallery, under a spotlight, stands the old stone. It is about the size of a beehive, carved all over with a woven net of stone cords. Two thousand years of visitors have looked at it and thought, what a strange rock.

You run your fingers over the carving. The stone that was moved to be kept. You press a knot in the net. And another.

The stone clicks and a small drawer slides out of its base. Inside, wrapped in blue cloth, lies a second bronze ring. This one is etched with a three-legged tripod and a sprig of laurel. You have found the Hour of Prophecy. Add HOUR OF PROPHECY to your Field Kit.

“Beautiful,” says a voice behind you. “Really. Thank you.”

Eris stands in the doorway. She is tall, with silver hair cut sharp as a blade and a white coat that never touches the floor. In one hand she holds a small remote. Behind her, Argus grins, and drones hover in the hallway.

“Do you know what history does to people who are not rich, little Keeper?” she says gently. “It forgets them. Aspasia’s voice is valuable because it was lost. Someone is going to own the past. I am only offering to do it well.” She holds out a hand. “Join me. You are clever. You would be wasted on the Agency. Give me the rings.”

Your heart hammers. Your options:

If you pretend to accept her offer, turn to 24. If you refuse and run, turn to 25. If you have the Laurel Leaf in your Field Kit, you may turn to 26. If you do not, choose 24 or 25.

23

The Tholos at Marmaria is one of the most photographed ruins in Greece, and when you reach it, you understand why. A ring of marble columns, only three still standing, rises from the grass, silvered by the moon. Behind them the whole valley opens like a hand.

It is perfect. It is peaceful. It is also, unfortunately, completely empty.

You search every stone. Zoe kneels, brushing leaves from the floor. Nothing. No latch, no drawer, no ring.

“The clue,” she says slowly. “The stone that was moved to be kept. Not the one that stayed. The one that was taken somewhere safe.”

A slow smile spreads across your face. “The museum. It’s in the museum.”

You thank the beautiful, empty Tholos and run back up the hill.

Turn back to 20.

24

“Okay,” you say, lowering your hands. “I’m in.”

Eris smiles the way a cat smiles at a fish. Zoe gives you a look that could curdle milk.

“Wise,” Eris says. She steps closer and extends a hand for the ring.

“One thing,” you say, and you step forward as if to hand it over. As you do, you press a button the size of a lentil, stuck to the back of the Hour of Wisdom, onto the sleeve of her white coat. A MNEMOSYNE tracker. You then slip the Hour of Prophecy safely back into your jacket.

“I will think about it until sunrise,” you say.

Eris laughs, one note, like glass. “You were never going to join me. But thank you for being polite.” She snaps her fingers, and the drones peel away.

At the door, she pauses. “The third hour is at Sounion, little Keeper. Where the sea keeps time. I will see you there at sunset.”

She vanishes. Moments later, your pen blinks blue. The tracker is working. Cape Sounion, it reads, and a countdown begins: sixteen hours.

Zoe lets out a long breath. “You nearly gave me a heart attack.”

“Nearly,” you say.

Turn to 27.

25

“No,” you say. And you throw the smoke capsule from the MNEMOSYNE pen.

FWOOMP. A thick purple cloud fills the gallery. Eris shrieks. Argus coughs. A drone beeps in alarm and flies headfirst into a display case of ancient jewelry.

“Zoe!” you shout.

“Got it!” Her scooter, which she apparently chained to a pillar outside the museum, comes roaring through the front doors, past a very startled security guard, and screeches to a halt beside you. You leap on behind her.

You rocket down the long hallway, past rows of marble statues, past the Charioteer of Delphi, a bronze young man who seems entirely unbothered, and out into the cold mountain night. Behind you, Eris shouts through the purple smoke:

“Sounion, little Keeper! The third hour is at Sounion! The sea always collects what it is owed!”

She wants you to come. That is what worries you.

You are three miles down the mountain before Zoe says, over the wind, “I think I need a new hobby.”

“No, you don’t,” you say, laughing.

Turn to 27.

26

You reach into your pocket and close your fingers around the laurel leaf. You remember Dr. Vlachou. Questions are only as good as the listening that follows them.

And then you remember how the Pythia spoke.

You straighten up. You make your voice slow and low and strange.

“Eris,” you say. “If you take the Hourglass, a great empire will fall.”

The room goes still.

Eris’s smile flickers. “What did you say?”

“A great empire will fall,” you repeat. “I cannot say whose.”

It is not a trick, exactly. It is the oldest trick there is: a true sentence with two meanings. You can see the gears turning behind her cold eyes. My empire? Her money? The Agency? She glances at Argus. She glances at her remote. For the first time, she looks uncertain.

“You are bluffing,” she says.

“Croesus said that too.”

Argus mutters something about “the boss’s nerves.” In the confusion, Zoe grabs a statue’s plinth and tips it into the doorway. Marble crashes. The drones tangle. You tumble out a side window into the dark.

A minute later, Eris’s voice crackles over the Agency radio, rattled and furious, and she says too much: “The sea chamber at Sounion will open at sunset. Whatever you think you know, little Keeper, you will not reach it.”

You grin at Zoe. “She just told us where the Archive is.”

“Sea chamber,” Zoe says. “Sunset. Sounion.”

Turn to 27.

 

ACT THREE: THE HOUR OF THE SEA

Cape Sounion

27

MNEMOSYNE FILE 0003. FINAL BRIEFING. THE FATE OF A THOUSAND VOICES.

The sun has not yet risen when the radio crackles to life in a blast of static and orchestral thunder. Somewhere in Athens, Director Argyros has hired an entire orchestra. You can hear a cymbal.

“AGENT KAIROS! ZOE PAPADAKIS! THIS IS IT!

“One hour south of Athens, where the land ends and the sea begins, a white marble temple stands on a cliff at CAPE SOUNION. It was built around 440 BCE for Poseidon, god of the sea, earthquakes, and horses. Ancient sailors saw it before any other sign of home. They prayed to it as they left. They thanked it when they returned. Legend says that on this very cliff, a king named Aegeus watched the horizon for his son Theseus, who was sailing home from Crete after defeating the Minotaur. Theseus forgot to change his black sails to white, the signal that he had survived. Aegeus thought his son was lost, and in his grief he was lost to the sea himself. The Aegean has carried his name ever since.

“The third piece of the Hourglass, the Hour of the Sea, hides in that temple. Eris will be there at sunset. So must you.

“Your equipment: the usual, plus a coil of rope, plus one very small parachute for reasons we cannot explain at this time.

“Whatever happens, Keepers, remember: History does not belong to the powerful. It belongs to whoever is brave enough to listen to it. Now GO!”

The orchestra ends in a crash. A pigeon somewhere falls off a windowsill.

Turn to 28.

28

The bus runs along the coast, and the sea beside you changes color with every mile: gray, then green, then a deep, shimmering blue that goes on forever. The ancient poet Homer called it wine-dark. Today you can see why.

You round a last curve, and there it is.

The Temple of Poseidon stands alone on the tip of a high cliff, its columns glowing in the afternoon sun, with nothing behind it but sky and sea. It looks like something a god set down and forgot to pick up. The wind on the headland is wild and salty and smells of thyme.

“Beautiful,” Zoe says softly. Then, because she is Zoe: “Also, there are four of Argus’s men at the front gate.”

You study the headland. The sun is already sliding toward the water. You have about two hours of light, and three ways forward.

•         The cliff path: a goat track that winds along the headland, steep but hidden from the gate.

•         A boat: Zoe’s uncle Nikos keeps a fishing boat in a nearby cove, and he owes her a favor.

•         The front gate: walk in with the crowd, blend in, and hope Argus’s men are looking for two kids who look like spies, not two kids who look like tourists.

If you take the cliff path, turn to 29. If you take the boat, turn to 30. If you go through the front gate, turn to 31.

29

The cliff path is not a path. It is an idea, held together by thorns.

You scramble up the rocks on your hands and knees, with the wind trying to peel you off the cliff like a sticker. A goat watches you from a ledge with an expression of deep, goatish pity.

“The stone for that temple,” Zoe pants, “was cut from the quarries nearby. Whole teams hauled it up this very slope. In 440 BCE.”

“Without rope?”

“With rope, ramps, oxen, and a great deal of complaining.”

Halfway up, you find a cleft in the cliff where the wind cannot reach. You rest. The sea thunders far below. You can see the whole coast, and the long blue road that ancient ships once sailed to Crete, to Egypt, to everywhere.

When you reach the top, your knees are bleeding, your jacket is ruined, and you have never felt so alive. You come out among the columns just behind a school group, entirely unobserved.

Turn to 32.

30

Captain Nikos is a weathered, grinning fisherman with a mustache like a pair of seagulls and a boat named Kyma, which means “wave.”

“Ah, Zoe’s friend,” he says. “Spy! Very good. Get in. Do not fall out. The sea does not give things back.”

The Kyma chugs across the bay, rising and falling on the swells. Above you, the temple grows larger and larger, until it fills the sky.

“Ancient sailors steered by that temple,” Nikos shouts over the engine. “When they saw it from the water, they knew they were nearly home. Before long voyages, they stopped at its altar and asked Poseidon for a gentle sea. Even today, I touch the bow and say a little prayer. Superstitious? Of course. But I am alive.”

As you pass under the cliff, you notice something odd: a dark, narrow opening in the rock just above the waterline, half hidden by waves.

“A sea cave,” Nikos says. “They say it goes a long way into the mountain.”

You memorize its location. Then Nikos drops you at a hidden landing, and you climb a stairway cut in the stone, up through the cliff and out among the columns.

Turn to 32.

31

You pay your tickets, nod at the guards, and walk past Argus’s men with the confidence of two children who are definitely, absolutely on a school trip.

“That,” Zoe whispers, “was the bravest thing I have ever done.”

“You were holding a map upside down.”

“I was committed.”

A group of tourists has gathered around a column near the back, taking pictures. You squeeze in. Carved into its marble, small and slanted but very clear, is a name: BYRON.

“Lord Byron, the English poet,” their guide announces. “He visited in 1810 and carved his name right here. He was a great writer, but not a great tourist. Please, my friends, do not carve your names in ancient columns. Even poets can be vandals.”

Zoe squeezes your arm. Across the temple floor, one of Argus’s men has turned around. You duck behind a very large German tourist and scoot to the far side of the temple.

Turn to 32.

32

The Temple of Poseidon is open to the wind and the sea. Fifteen columns still stand, white as bone against the blue, and between them you can see the water stretching out forever.

The sun is lower now. You have maybe an hour.

Zoe spreads out the Agency’s file and reads Aspasia’s third and final clue.

Poseidon lost the contest for Athens, but he never stopped giving. Seek his gift, not his trophy.

“The contest,” you say slowly. “I remember. Athena and Poseidon both wanted to be the patron of Athens. Each had to offer the city a gift. Poseidon struck the rock of the Acropolis with his trident, and a spring of salt water gushed out. Athena planted an olive tree. The people chose the olive, which gave them food, oil, and wood.”

“So the trident is his trophy,” Zoe says. “The thing he used to fight. And his gift…”

She gestures at the sparkling sea beyond the cliff. “The water. The salt. The sea.”

You study the headland. You have three places to try.

•         A carved trident worn into the stone above a side doorway, an old pilgrim’s mark.

•         A rock pool hollowed out of the cliff below the temple, filled and emptied by the tide.

•         The base of a column with a name carved into it, already scratched and famous.

If you search the carved trident, turn to 33. If you climb down to the rock pool, turn to 34. If you check the base of the famous column, turn to 35.

33

You press your thumb into the trident, and something inside the wall clunks.

A cold feeling ripples down your neck. You remember what the clue said. His gift, not his trophy.

Too late. A hidden line snaps loose above the doorway, and a heavy rope net drops over both of you. You thrash. Zoe thrashes harder. The net, which was clearly designed to catch somebody much larger and much less clever, tightens around your feet.

“Argus,” Zoe growls, “loves a trap.”

You fumble in your pocket for the MNEMOSYNE pen and click its tip. A thin blue beam hisses along the net, and the ropes fall away. You scramble free, rubbing your arms, as footsteps pound in the distance.

“The trophy is a trap,” you tell Zoe. “It always was. Poseidon’s trophy is bait.”

“So what’s the gift?”

You look at the sea.

Turn back to 32.

34

You climb down the rocks to a hollow in the cliff, where the tide has carved a pool no bigger than a bathtub. The water is clear and cold and tastes of the whole ocean. Salt crusts the stone in white lace.

A gift, not a trophy. The sea itself.

You plunge your hands into the water and feel along the bottom. Nothing. Then, beneath a ridge of rock, your fingers find a seam. You push. A stone lid slides sideways.

Wrapped in oilcloth lies the third ring. A wave curls across its face, and a trident rises from the foam. You have found the Hour of the Sea. Add HOUR OF THE SEA to your Field Kit.

With shaking hands, you take out the other two rings. The Hour of Wisdom. The Hour of Prophecy. The Hour of the Sea.

The three bronze rings meet with a soft, round chime, the way old friends greet each other. They click into place around a slender bronze neck. And there, in your hands, in the golden light, stands Aspasia’s Hourglass, whole at last.

It is smaller than you imagined, and more beautiful. Water drips from a hidden vessel at the top, a clear bead at a time, through a slender channel, into a bowl below. Drip. Drip. Drip. A water clock, shaped like an hourglass. Twenty-five centuries old, and it is still keeping time.

Then the setting sun strikes its polished face, and a beam of light shoots out and across the cliff. It paints a glowing map on the stone: a tunnel, a door, a chamber cut into the sea cliff just beneath the temple. And in the center of the door, a small, perfectly round slot.

“The Archive,” Zoe breathes.

A helicopter thunders overhead. A white yacht, sleek as a shark, slides into the bay below. Footsteps on the stones. A voice, silver and cold, rings out above the wind.

“Well done, little Keeper,” says Eris. “You have saved me a great deal of trouble.”

Turn to 36.

35

You crouch at the base of the column where the name BYRON is scratched into the marble. You look for a seam. A hidden catch. A secret drawer.

There is only a name.

“Huh,” Zoe says. “Some guy visited in 1810 and had to carve it into a two-thousand-year-old column. People have been writing on these walls for ages, you know. Ancient visitors did it, too. Sailors left prayers. Pilgrims left names. People want to say, I was here.”

She straightens. “Which is kind of what Aspasia was doing. Except she did it with a clock.”

You stare at the little carved name. It is not the answer. But it is, somehow, part of the answer: the thing everyone here is trying to say.

Turn back to 32.

36

Eris stands on the cliff with the wind whipping her white coat like a flag. Argus is at her side, and above, drones circle in a tight, buzzing ring.

“The Hourglass,” she says. She holds out a gloved hand. “And the coin, if you found it. I know there is one. Aspasia’s joke. A key shaped like the owl of Athena.”

The light is sliding down the sky. In minutes, the sun will touch the sea. You hold the Hourglass in both hands. You can feel it ticking.

Zoe stands beside you, fists clenched, shaking, but not stepping back.

What will you do?

If you have both the Owl Coin and the Laurel Leaf in your Field Kit, turn to 42. If you have only the Owl Coin, turn to 38. If you have only the Laurel Leaf, turn to 37. If you radio the Director for reinforcements, turn to 39. If you attack, turn to 40.

37

You do not have a key for the door. But you have a leaf, and a voice, and a lesson.

You hold up the laurel and speak in the slow, strange voice of the Pythia. “Eris. Whoever tries to own this will lose what they love most. I cannot say which.”

Eris freezes. Her hand tightens on the remote. Behind her, Argus whispers, “Boss, maybe we should—”

“It is a trick,” she hisses. But you can see that she is already counting what she could lose: the yacht, the auction, the gleaming empire she has built out of other people’s stories.

Zoe takes her chance. She swings her helmet like a hammer and smacks the remote from Eris’s hand. It clatters into the sea. All at once, the drones fall silent and drop out of the sky like startled birds.

Eris backs away. Argus runs. The yacht swings and vanishes into the dusk.

You are alone with the Hourglass, the wind, and the quiet sea. The map on the cliff still glows, and the round door in the stone remains locked. You study its slot. Whatever fits there, it is small, and silver, and round.

In the weeks to come, MNEMOSYNE will guard the Hourglass and study the door. You are certain there is a key out there somewhere. You are also certain that you will be the one to find it.

THE SEALED DOOR

The Hourglass is safe, and the Archive is waiting. Somewhere in Athens lies an owl who sees at midnight. Turn back to 1 if you would like to find it.

38

You do not hesitate. You pull the silver owl from your pocket.

“Eris,” you say, “you should not have joked about the key.”

You sprint toward the glowing map on the cliff, Zoe at your heels. At the end of a narrow ledge, a stone door waits, flush with the rock. In the center is a perfect round slot. You press the Athenian owl into it.

Click.

The door swings inward without a sound. Cool air breathes out, smelling of cedar, dust, and the sea.

Behind you, Eris screams. “No!”

You duck into the passage as drones swarm and Zoe tumbles in after you, slamming the door. You hold your breath in the dark. Then your pen glows blue, and you see them: shelves and shelves and shelves, carved into the rock, crowded with scrolls, clay tablets, and wooden boxes tied with ribbon. Hundreds of them. A thousand voices, waiting, patient as stone.

It is the Archive of Aspasia.

You are still staring when the door explodes inward and Argus bursts in with a crowbar and a net. In the scuffle, Eris dives past and snatches the Hourglass from your pack. She is gone before you can blink. A distant engine roars. The yacht, leaving.

Zoe slumps against a shelf. “She got it.”

“She got the Hourglass,” you say, looking at the scrolls. “She didn’t get them.”

The Archive is safe. Eris is gone, and she has a piece of history in her hands that she does not understand. Somewhere out there, a very large clock is still ticking.

THE ARCHIVE WITHOUT THE HOUR

The voices are saved, but the villain is free. Turn back to 36 to try for a better ending.

39

You press the button on your pen and shout into the radio. “Director! Sounion! Now!”

There is a pause. Then, a thunder of rotors, and three black helicopters rise out of the sunset in perfect formation. A squadron of Coast Guard cutters surrounds the white yacht. A very large pigeon lands on Argus’s head and refuses to leave.

“AGENT KAIROS!” Director Argyros’s voice booms from every speaker at once. “WE HAVE THE CLIFF! WE HAVE THE SEA! WE HAVE, FOR REASONS OF DRAMA, A SMALL BRASS BAND!”

Eris’s drones fall. Her people scatter. She tries to flee along the cliff path, but the Keepers’ jeeps cut her off.

When the dust settles, the Hourglass is safe, bound in a velvet case in the Director’s own hands. The Agency’s scientists hurry over. They study the map on the cliff. They find the round door in the rock, and the slot that would open it.

But they do not have the key.

For the moment, the Archive stays sealed in its chamber, with the sea at its feet and a thousand voices still waiting inside. The Director puts a hand on your shoulder. “Well done. Next time, ask yourself what small, ordinary thing you might have picked up along the way.”

You nod, and you wonder what you missed.

THE LONG WAY HOME

The Hourglass is safe, but the door is still shut. Turn back to 1 to look for what you missed.

40

You lunge.

It is brave. It is also exactly what Eris expected.

Argus spins a net out of his sleeve like a magician, and the weighted cords wrap around your arms and legs. You hit the stones hard. Zoe’s helmet clatters across the cliff.

“How disappointing,” Eris says, almost kindly. She kneels, lifts the Hourglass from the net, and turns it toward the sun. “Thank you, Agent Kairos. History will remember you as a footnote.”

The white yacht slides into the cove. Within minutes, Eris, Argus, and the Hourglass are gone, dwindling to a white dot on the endless blue.

You and Zoe lie tangled in the net, watching the last of the sunset drain from the sky. Somewhere below, a tide you cannot stop rises on the rocks.

“Well,” Zoe says into the dark, “that was a very dramatic mistake.”

You laugh in spite of yourself. And then, slowly, you begin to think.

THE SAND RUNS OUT

Not every story is won by force. Turn back to 36 and look for a cleverer way.

41

You put the smoldering tape recorder on the windowsill, pull the blanket over your head, and go back to sleep.

It is a very nice nap.

At 7:15, you wake to a polite tapping. The pigeon is back. It is holding a tiny sign in its beak. The sign reads: ARE YOU SURE?

You look at the pigeon. The pigeon looks at you. Somewhere, very far away, a bronze clock is dripping, one patient bead at a time.

THE QUIET LIFE

Some stories wait for you. Turn back to 1 when you are ready.

42

You do not hesitate. You know exactly what to do.

First, you raise the laurel leaf and speak in the slow, strange voice of the Pythia. “Eris. I have a question for you. If you open this door, whose empire will fall?”

The wind drops. Eris’s cold eyes flicker to the leaf, to the Hourglass, to the sinking sun.

“I…” she says.

“It is a good question,” you say. “Croesus never asked it. I think you should.”

While she is thinking, Zoe moves. Her helmet flashes, and the remote spins from Eris’s hand into the surf. All across the cliff, the drones lose their signal and drop out of the sky. Argus, who is not a brave man, sits down on the ground.

You sprint along the narrow ledge to the glowing door in the cliff. You press the silver Athenian owl into the slot.

Click.

The door swings open. Cool air breathes out, smelling of cedar and dust and the sea. Inside, your pen glows blue, and you see them: shelves cut into the rock, rising to the ceiling, crowded with scrolls, clay tablets, and wooden boxes tied with ribbon. Hundreds of them. A thousand voices, waiting.

On a stone table, at the very center, lies a single wax tablet. The wax is soft with age. Scratched into it, in a small, careful hand, are the words you have been following across Greece. Zoe reads them aloud, and her voice breaks halfway through.

“If you are reading this, then somebody listened. They told me I was only a woman, only a foreigner, only a shadow. But a voice is not a shadow. A voice is a clock that keeps ticking long after the speaker is gone. Whoever you are, keep the hours. Tell the story. And remember: the people history forgets are the people you must look for first.”

You do not say anything for a long time. Neither does Zoe.

Behind you, Eris has fallen to her knees at the mouth of the door, silver hair whipping in the wind. She does not try to run. The Hellenic Coast Guard is already coming around the headland. A pigeon in a tiny trench coat lands on her shoulder with great dignity.

Three weeks later, the Archive of Aspasia opens to the public in a quiet museum in Athens, a stone’s throw from the Tower of the Winds. Its letters, lessons, and arguments are copied, translated, and shared with schoolchildren around the world. Zoe gives guided tours on Saturdays. Dr. Vlachou sends you a pomegranate. Director Argyros sends you a very large box of snacks.

And in a glass case at the center of the main hall, facing the Acropolis, stands Aspasia’s Hourglass, whole at last, still dripping, one bright bead at a time.

You watch it fall. Then you smile, because you know something now that you did not know on the day the pigeon came.

The perfect moment, kairos, is not something you find. It is something you make.

THE TRUE ENDING

THE END

 

BACK MATTER

FACT OR FICTION?

What is real:

•         Aspasia of Miletus was a real woman who lived in Athens in the fifth century BCE. She came from the Greek city of Miletus (in what is now Turkey), and because she was a woman and a foreigner, she could never be an Athenian citizen. Ancient writers, including Plato and Plutarch, say she was brilliant, that she was close to the leader Pericles, and that Athenian thinkers came to talk with her. Much of what we know about her comes from other people, some admiring and some unkind, which is exactly why her own voice is missing.

•         The Parthenon was built between about 447 and 432 BCE on the Acropolis, from marble quarried at Mount Pentelicus, and it honored Athena. It has eight columns across its front.

•         The Temple of Hephaestus in the ancient Agora is one of the best-preserved Greek temples in the world.

•         The Tower of the Winds is a real eight-sided tower in the Roman Agora with eight carved wind gods, sundials, and a space for a water clock.

•         The Athens Metro really does display ancient finds in its stations, because builders kept discovering the past while digging.

•         Athenian “owl” coins (tetradrachms) were famous across the ancient world, stamped with Athena’s head on one side and her owl on the other.

•         Delphi was the home of the Pythia, the priestess of Apollo. Pilgrims came from all over the Mediterranean to ask her questions. The story of Croesus, the king who misread her answer, comes from the ancient historian Herodotus. The Castalian Spring, the laurel (sacred to Apollo), the maxims “Know thyself” and “Nothing in excess,” the omphalos stone, the net-covered stone in the museum, and the round Tholos at Marmaria are all real.

•         The Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion was built around 440 BCE. Lord Byron really did carve his name on a column in 1810. The legend of King Aegeus, the black sails, and the Aegean Sea is a famous Greek myth, as is the contest between Athena and Poseidon for the city of Athens.

What is invented:

•         Aspasia’s Hourglass, its three pieces, and the Archive. There is no evidence that Aspasia built such a device or kept such an archive. (That is the fiction. Her voice being lost is the real part.)

•         MNEMOSYNE, Director Argyros, Eris, Argus, Zoe, Dr. Vlachou, Captain Nikos, and every note “written” by Aspasia. (In Greek myth, Mnemosyne is the goddess of memory and the mother of the nine Muses. Eris is the goddess of discord. Argus Panoptes is a hundred-eyed giant.)

A note about the “hourglass”: Sand hourglasses did not exist in ancient Greece. They appeared many centuries later. The ancient Greeks measured time with sundials and with water clocks called clepsydrae, which were even used in Athenian courts to time speeches. In this story, the “Hourglass” is a water clock shaped like an hourglass, and the name stuck, as nicknames do.

PRONUNCIATION GUIDE

•         Aegeus: ee-JEE-us

•         Aspasia: as-PAY-zhuh

•         Athena: uh-THEE-nuh

•         Boreas: BOR-ee-us

•         Clepsydra: KLEP-sih-druh

•         Croesus: KREE-sus

•         Delphi: DEL-fy

•         Eris: AIR-iss

•         Hephaestus: hih-FES-tus

•         Kairos: KY-ross

•         Mnemosyne: nem-AH-sih-nee

•         Notos: NOH-tos

•         Omphalos: OM-fuh-los

•         Parthenon: PAR-theh-non

•         Pericles: PAIR-ih-kleez

•         Poseidon: poh-SY-dun

•         Pythia: PITH-ee-uh

•         Sounion: SOO-nee-on

•         Theseus: THEE-see-us

•         Tholos: THOH-los

•         Yiayia: YAH-yah (Greek for “grandmother”)

•         Zephyros: ZEF-ih-ros

TIMELINE

•         About 470 BCE: Aspasia is born in Miletus.

•         447 BCE: Construction begins on the Parthenon.

•         About 440 BCE: The Temple of Poseidon at Sounion is built.

•         432 BCE: The Parthenon is completed.

•         First century BCE: The Tower of the Winds is built in Athens.

•         1810 CE: Lord Byron visits Sounion and carves his name on a column.

QUESTIONS FOR READERS, CLASSROOMS, AND BOOK CLUBS

1.       Aspasia was a woman and a foreigner in Athens. Why do you think her voice was so often left out of the history books? Whose voices are left out of the stories you learn today?

2.       Croesus misread the Oracle because he heard what he wanted to hear. Can you think of a time you did the same? What question should he have asked?

3.       Eris believes that “someone is going to own the past” and that it might as well be her. Do you agree? Who should decide which stories are remembered?

4.       In the story, wrong choices usually teach you something. What did you learn from the choices that didn’t work?

5.       Zoe says that Byron carving his name on a column is like people saying, “I was here.” How do people leave their mark today? What is the difference between leaving a mark and leaving a legacy?

6.       The Greek myths in this story (Athena’s birth, Daphne, Aegeus, the contest for Athens) each explain something about the world. What do you think each one is trying to teach?

7.       Which ending did you find first? Which one do you think is best, and why?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sean Taylor, M.Ed., has spent twenty-six years in classrooms as a teacher and curriculum developer, working in special education and Title I schools and teaching reading intervention to children in kindergarten through eighth grade. He is the founder of Reading Boot Camp and the Reading Sage blog. A painter and illustrator since 1989, he once spent three years traveling Europe with a sketchbook, drawing in pen and ink and watercolor across twenty-seven countries. Aspasia’s Hourglass is his first branching-path adventure.