Lore

“No. She’s not,” Lore said coldly.

The other girl flinched, her eyes darting to Castor. “I—I know I made a mistake. What happened was a mistake. I—all of us—wish to make amends. We wish to fight. To stop Wrath.”

Lore looked at her in disbelief.

“It’s true,” Miles told Lore. “Iro found us while we were on our way to meet the Achillides. They’ve shared supplies and information.”

Lore opened her mouth to speak, but Castor’s quiet voice cut in.

“Do you mean that sincerely?” he asked Iro. “What changed?”

“I changed,” Iro said. “Someone told me that there is a better world waiting to be chosen, and I know that it will vanish the moment Wrath’s plan comes to pass. If you can believe nothing else, believe that I will not allow my father’s killer to emerge the victor of the Agon.”

Castor seemed to consider her and her words carefully before he said, “All right.”

Lore spun toward him. “What?”

“I accept your apology,” he told Iro. “Thank you for helping the Achillides.”

Lore blew a piece of hair out of her face. “This is why I always had to hold all of our grudges as kids. You’ve never had the heart for them.” To Iro she said, “If this is another trick . . .”

“This is no trick,” Iro said. “I’ll swear an oath to you now—”

Lore held up her hand. “Please. I can’t take any more oaths. I’ll just take your word for it.”

Heavy steps bounded up the stairs behind Iro. They all turned to find a slightly winded Van sagging against the stairwell rail. A plastic grocery bag, laden with water bottles and packaged food, hung from his wrist.

“Are you all right?” Miles asked.

Van held up a hand, waving him off. He turned his face back down toward the stairs behind him, but not quickly enough for Lore to miss the way his lips compressed and his eyes squeezed shut in the kind of relief that was so sharp, it became painful.

This, she realized, was her family now. This was what had been right in front of her, waiting to be seen, the whole time she’d been chasing the past.

When Van looked at them again, he noticed who wasn’t there. “Where’s Athena?”

Miles shook himself, as if he hadn’t even realized it. “Wait . . . I just thought she was—actually, I don’t know what I thought.”

Lore drew in a deep breath.

“I need to tell you all what happened,” she said, leaning the covered aegis against a nearby wall. “And then we need to figure out a plan.”

 

“Well,” Van said elegantly as he rummaged through one of his bags of supplies. “Damn.”

It was a while before anyone else spoke.

“Gil . . . was Hermes . . .” Miles said, looking like he might faint out of his chair. Lore sat beside him on the ground and placed a steadying hand on his leg. “A god . . . washed my unmentionables. . . . He came to Family Weekend at Columbia with me. . . . We ate pizza together.” He whispered the word again in disbelief. “Pizza.”

“Yeah,” Lore said softly. “We did.”

“Why did he take me in?” Miles said. “Why offer me a place to live? It must have been to help disguise the fact you were there, I’m just not sure how.”

“Maybe he just liked you,” Lore said. Maybe Hermes had thought she would need someone like Miles.

“No wonder you were so upset,” Castor said, his voice strained. “I knew it had to be something terrible, but I’m not sure I could have imagined that.”

“And Athena . . .” Van shook his head. “I should have seen it. I should have believed the stories about her, even as she worked with us.”

He opened a small white package, then he crossed the short distance to where Miles sat and carefully brushed the hair from his forehead so he could apply the bright-blue ice pack to the bruise.

Miles stared up at him, eyes wide. Van, as if realizing what he’d done, pulled back, quickly handing it to him.

“Here,” he said. “I . . . It looked bad.”

“Where did you find an ice pack in a city with no power?” Miles asked faintly.

“Still doubting my abilities, I see,” Van said. “I always get what I want.”

“Here, let me heal you,” Castor said, starting to rise.

Miles waved him off, holding his ice pack to his bruise.

“I really should have figured it out,” Van said, finishing his earlier thought. “If not her role, then the fact that Wrath already knew what the poem said.”

“He gave no indication that he already possessed knowledge of its contents,” Iro told Lore apologetically. “I would not have kept that from you.”

“I know. And if it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine,” Lore told them. “I’m the one who brought all of you into this. I’m the one who let her in.”

“You’re really okay?” Miles asked Lore, reaching over to grip her hand.

“I’ve been better,” she told him. “But Castor found me in time.”

Van pressed his cellphone to his forehead, thinking. “And the new lines . . .”

He trailed off in thought again.

“And you did take the aegis,” Iro said, her dark eyes soft. “All this time, you never said a word . . . not even when we talked about it while training.”

“I didn’t let myself think about it,” Lore said. “Let alone talk about it.”

“Where is it now?” Iro asked.

Lore stood, working out the stiffness in her joints as she went to retrieve it. She didn’t bother with the knot this time. She tore the bag off it, kicking away the scraps as she held the aegis out to show them.

The phone clattered from Van’s hand.

“I know,” Castor said to him.

Van and Iro came toward the shield slowly, stunned. Iro pressed a hand to her mouth, crouching in front of it.

“That’s—” Van began.

“Yes,” Lore said.

“Carried into the Trojan War—”

“Yes.”

“Born from Hephaestus’s hammer—”

“Yes.”

“Bearing the Gorgoneion—”

“Do you need to sit back down?” Lore asked him, seriously. Van stretched his hand out toward it, only to pull it back before his fingers could touch Medusa. As if she might bite. But none of them were afraid—Lore wondered then if she had to be holding the shield to use it to instill terror in others, and if she had to will that effect into being.