Lore

She looked up at Castor, lacing their fingers together as they continued in silence, moving through the floodwaters until they reached the 7 train’s Thirty-Fourth Street station.

Castor melted the lock that kept the security gate in place, lifting it enough for them to pass beneath. Water rushed down the steps into the station, but Lore was surprised to find that it wasn’t completely submerged. The subway must have had some way of slowly draining; there was only about three feet of water on the tracks themselves.

“With it, or upon it, right?” Lore said lightly, adjusting the aegis’s straps so she could carry it on her back.

With it, or upon it. It was what countless Spartan mothers had said to their sons and husbands as they handed them their shields before battle. For a society that loathed rhipsaspides—shield droppers who turned coward and threw them down to escape, or those men who lost them in the fight—there were two avenues for returning home: victorious, or carried home dead upon your shield.

Castor gripped her arm, forcing her to look at him. The station was dark, making the sparks of power glow brighter in his eyes as he said, “Don’t say that. Please—don’t say that.”

Not even the Spartans were Spartan, her father had told her. It’s not always the truth that survives, but the stories we wish to believe. The legends lie.

“Then I won’t,” Lore said.

How they were remembered would never be as important as what they did now. Her father had been right about that, too.

They splashed down onto the tracks from the station platform and fought their way forward through the water.

Lore switched on her flashlight’s lower setting. Her sword bounced against her hip as they walked along the rails.

She couldn’t resist looking over at him then, drinking the sight of him in deep to ward off the chill growing along her spine.

“If we’re wrong about your immortality and somehow they take you,” she whispered, “wait for me at the dark river. I’ll bring you home.”

“Hades himself would turn me back at the gates knowing you’re coming,” Castor told her, “and that I’d fight like hell to meet you halfway.”

Lore relished the feel of his hand in hers for just a moment more before letting it go. Both she and Castor would need their sword hands free.

She slid the aegis forward, but kept her flashlight aimed at the track. It was a slow crawl, the tunnel making it feel as though they were trapped inside a bleak eternity, that they would be walking forever toward a place they would never reach. It was the kind of punishment the gods used to love.

They followed the curve of the track up from Thirty-Fourth Street to Times Square, settling into a careful silence as they waded through the ankle-high pool of water. The air in the tunnel was still and heavy, and the walls around them were slick with moisture. Lore strained her ears, trying to catch the sound of voices or footsteps, but heard only the scurrying of rodents and the steady dripping of water falling all around them.

“The GPS just cut out,” Castor whispered, showing her as much on her phone. “But we’re nearly to the Bryant Park station.”

They walked for a few minutes more before Castor stopped suddenly, reaching back for Lore’s flashlight—not to aim it, but to switch it off. Lore tensed, stepping forward to see what had brought him up short.

Her eyes adjusted again to the dark, and each slow second revealed a new detail of the gruesome scene. The bodies of police officers, along with uniformed National Guardsmen, littered the track in front of them. Their bodies were locked in anguished poses, as if they’d been dropped down from a great height.

Red light flooded the chamber as a flare was lit and tossed down onto the back of a dead woman.

Dozens of hunters peeled away from the dark edges of the tunnel,

perched up on the slight, narrow platforms that lined either side of it. They turned their masked faces toward Lore and Castor one by one—serpents, horses, and Minotaurs.

Seeing them lined up that way, like sentinels, Lore felt as if she was standing at the start of a gauntlet. Their grunting chants echoed, swirling in the air like wraiths.

“I do not like these odds for you, new god,” one of the hunters said.

“Really.” Castor lifted his chin, taking the measure of them in one look. “You seem certain about that.”

Each second that passed felt like a cut to her skin. Lore stepped in front of him, raising the aegis toward the bloodred glow of the flare.

These, she thought, are our enemies.

Yesss, the voice hissed in agreement.

The hunter nearest to her swore, lifting his mask in shock. Others began to shake, dropping down from the ledges and onto the tracks, cowering.

“Steady—” the first hunter called. “Don’t look directly at it!”

Those toward the back shielded their eyes.

Castor slid something into her back pocket. Her phone.

Her heart slammed up into her throat. Lore knew—she knew that she couldn’t stop, not even for an instant, not when they were so close and time was so short.

I’ll catch up, he mouthed, his powerful body tensed in preparation. His eyes flashed dangerously as he turned back to the other hunters. Those who had seen the aegis were struggling against its terror, but the rest began to beat their swords and spears against the shields they carried. The tunnel seemed to press in around them.

No, Lore thought. Not yet . . .

Because if she left him here, against all the hunters . . . she might never see him again.

“Go,” he whispered. Then, louder, “Last chance to leave. Any takers for walking out of here alive?”

Lore brought up the aegis, drawing in a deep breath. At the faint smell of fire, of burning hair, she lowered herself into a ready stance. The hunters nearest to her had gone through the same fear and pain conditioning she’d been subjected to, but now sobbed with horror, cringing away from her.

She looked back one last time at Castor. She let his hard expression of determination, of confidence, sear itself into her memory.

Then the screaming began.

The two hunters nearest to her began to burn from the inside out, the heat of Castor’s power incinerating bones, sinews, muscles, skin.

Lore leaped forward, her blade slashing through the spears of the hunters, still howling as they died. The aegis absorbed the hammering blows of their swords and small blades as she shoved her way through. A spear tip cut across the back of her neck, but Lore pressed forward, hacking her way through the melee exploding around her.