Also, she’d been taught to think that the Parthenon were the right and the good. And rather than that meaning they got to do what they liked, and their actions would be whitewashed as right and good because of who they were, it meant they had to actually do right and good things. Active virtue…
As with the first book, this is good stuff but not Tchaikovsky’s best stuff. Some of what’s intended to provoke a sense of awe or mystery doesn’t really land. For example, we’re told the minds of the Architects are “unfathomable” but what we actually learn about them seems pretty straightforward.