Lore

Instead of following the path the water took, Lore went the other way, crossing through the waterfall created by the drain. There was a small alcove-like space where the drain met the wall of the restaurant’s basement. She stopped, staring at the dark garbage bag resting there, exactly where she had left it.

There was a sound like whispering, a thousand silky voices talking over one another, urging her forward.

Lore moved, and the world fell silent. Power seemed to burn through the bag, making her fingers spark where she touched it.

“Lore?” Castor called.

She shook herself out of the stupor. “I’m going to pass it up to you.”

Lore fought the rushing water to lift it into his hands. Castor let out a small gasp of surprise as his arms locked and he nearly tipped into the drain.

“What did you put in here with it?” he asked, struggling to draw it the rest of the way up.

“Very funny,” Lore said, accepting Castor’s help as he hauled her out, too.

She sat for a moment, trying to force her breathing to settle.

“I’m serious,” Castor said, giving the shield an accusatory look. “It must weigh close to a thousand pounds. How did you lift it?”

Lore shot him a look of disbelief, reaching over to untie the knot in the garbage bag. She pulled it down to reveal the curve of the round shield and the gold key pattern inlaid into the leather.

Then, with another breath, she pulled at the bag until Medusa’s ferocious face glared back at them from the center of the aegis.

I remember you, it seemed to say.

The first time she looked upon the aegis, Lore had seen a monster made into a god’s trophy. Now, as Lore met Medusa’s sightless eyes, she only saw herself gazing back.

Castor did not seem to be breathing. “You put Zeus’s shield in a trash bag.”

“And hid it in a storm drain,” Lore confirmed.

“You . . .” he began, only to let the words die off with a strangled “How?”

“I told you,” Lore said. “I put it the one place they would never think to look—the same place I had taken it from. Well, on the other side of the wall.”

Lore touched the edge of the aegis, feeling that same buzzing sensation move through her fingers, to her hand, to her heart.

It was hers. How she would use it now was up to her, and her alone.

Castor said nothing, but she felt his eyes on her all the same.

She turned it around so the inner curve of the shield faced them. Feeling along the edge of the soft, worn leather that covered the interior, she found a small catch and pulled it away. There, just as Tidebringer had said, was the inscribed poem, written in the ancient tongue.

Castor let out a soft gasp at the sight of it, pulling closer to read it over her shoulder.

“It’s almost exactly the same—” she began.

Except for the final lines.

“So it shall be until that day,” Lore read, loosely translating them, “when one remains who is remade whole and summons me with smoke of altars to be built by conquest final and fearsome.” She glanced up at his pensive face. “What do you think that means?”

“I have no idea,” Castor said. “But I don’t like the sound of conquest final and fearsome.”

“Summons me . . .” Lore read again. “Athena said the aegis could be used to call down lightning. I wonder if Wrath wants to hedge his bets when it comes to summoning Zeus, and use the shield to call on him to witness whatever he has planned?”

“Maybe,” Castor said. He drew in a long breath.

“What is it?” Lore asked him.

“I don’t know. . . . This has given me even more questions than I had before. I’m still stuck on whether or not there can only be one of us left alive,” Castor said. “And how can a god be ‘remade whole’ if they don’t have access to their full powers even while in their divine form? And is this act—whatever it is—something only one god can perform to win the Agon? Or do all of the surviving gods have to individually perform it to release themselves and the hunters from the Agon?”

That last thought scorched her with the kind of blistering hope Lore hadn’t been sure she was capable of anymore. Free. All of them.

Athena had seen the secret longing in her to be more. Lore had only ever been kidding herself when she thought she’d be able to shake off this week and return to the life she’d created. The Agon was an addiction, and only its true end would purge it from her—and not just her, but all the others who fought and killed for centuries in the search for that same more.

Even if Castor was forced into the realm of gods and separated from her again, he would be alive. The pain of knowing what she would gain and lose made Lore feel as if she’d torn her own lungs from her chest.

In time, she could accept it, though. She could be content knowing he was out there. . . .

Well, maybe not content.

“In that case, you’d think Zeus would have been a little more specific,” Lore groused.

“Not if the Agon was meant to be more than punishment . . .” Castor said, trailing off. “Never mind. I have no idea what I’m talking about. We’ll take this back to Van and Miles. I’m sure they’ll both have thoughts.”

She nodded.

“You know,” Lore began, something else occurring to her. “Athena wondered if you were somehow a true god, or another god in disguise—but that would mean you were somehow borrowing Apollo’s power, and wouldn’t he have to be alive for that to be true?”

“Artemis said something similar,” Castor said. “That I had his power, but that I was different . . . I’m limited in the same way they are, though, even in full immortal form. I don’t have all of his abilities, only the ones I’ve used.”

She gave him a thoughtful look. “Do you think Apollo figured out the meaning of this and escaped? Maybe he did need you to help him in some way, and you can’t remember because Zeus wants all of the gods to unravel it for themselves.”

Castor looked down at his upturned hands. “But then why do I have his power? Athena wasn’t wrong. When I call on it, it’s more like . . . dipping a hand into a warm river and pulling from it. Or . . . there’s always a candle inside me, but I can feed it with more fire if I reach for it. Am I making any sense?”

“You are,” she reassured him. “The little shred of good news is that we don’t have to figure all of this out right now. I think we have to focus on stopping whatever Wrath has planned. Cas, he still has to die. We can’t let him regain his immortality and come back for Van or Miles or any of the others.”