The medicine had compromised his immune system, but Lore couldn’t stand the thought of him being alone, day after day. She had always been so careful not to touch him, knowing the kind of city grime she brought in with her. Most days, she had just sat by his bed as he slept and kept watch over him with Chiron.

He shook his head in disbelief and no small amount of horror. “That’s a four-story fall. You wouldn’t have walked away from that!”

Lore waved her hand, turning back toward where Philip was still flat on his back, his breathing shallow.

“You said you didn’t know who you could trust,” Lore said. “Is this what you meant?”

“Yes.” He drew in a deep breath. “But I also just . . . wanted to see you, and warn you about Aristos—about Wrath. Van brought me to you instead of coming straight here from the Awakening in Central Park.”

“Why?” Lore hated the ragged edge that crept into the words. “You had seven years to come find me before then. Did mortality make you feel particularly nostalgic, or were you just in the mood to ruin my night?”

“I tried,” he said. “I tried to find you for years, but it was like you vanished. There was no trace of you left.”

“Yeah, that was kind of by design,” Lore said, her heart giving a hard kick at the memory.

“I thought you might be dead, but Van managed to track you down yesterday,” Castor said. “He was worried about Philip, and he thought—I thought—you might be willing to help hide me, or get me out of the city.”

Was she wearing some kind of sign on her back that offered shelter to all immortals in peril?

“But you’re right,” he said. “You’re right. It wasn’t fair to put that on you. I suppose I just thought—”

“What? That we’re still friends?” she finished, before she could stop herself.

He flinched and tried to hide it by rising to his feet. Lore stood, too, not liking the feeling of being caught in his shadow.

“Then why did you come here?” he asked quietly. “You told me in no uncertain terms you had no desire to help me, so why risk it?”

The question hung like a sword above her neck. Lore turned her back to him, struggling to answer that herself.

Because you’re the only one in the world I thought I could trust.

“Desperation,” she heard herself say, cutting the truth down to its core. Her eyes caught the glimmer of gold on the ground and, ignoring the pain in her body, she bent to pick up one of the fragments of his crown. The lie came easier than she’d expected it to. “To see if you know anything else about what Wrath’s been searching for.”

Lore held the piece of the crown out to him, keeping her eyes on the intricately shaped laurel leaves and not his face.

“I see,” the new god said softly. “I caught some of his movements in the years between, but I could never pinpoint what he was looking for, and neither could Van. I wish I had more of an answer for you, Golden.”

“Don’t—” Lore forced her voice to steady. “Don’t call me that.”

It had been stupid of her to choose it for Frankie’s ring, but it was the first thing that had sprung to mind, and Frankie had liked it too much to let her change it the next week. It was a play on the endearment her parents had used, my golden, which itself had been an ode to honey. Lore had been named for both of her grandmothers, Melitta, meaning bee, and Lora.

“I think I know what it is,” she told him. “What he’s looking for.”

Castor’s hand hovered alongside hers. A hint of warmth brushed her bruised knuckles a heartbeat before he did. The touch was soft, hesitant, gone almost as soon as she’d felt it.

“What?” His eyes were on her. She couldn’t say what it was that kept her there, waiting, her hands still outstretched. But then the touch came again, the very tips of his fingers drawing down from her wrists, over the curve of her thumbs, until, finally, they hooked around the piece of the crown and Lore remembered she was supposed to let it go.

“Another version of the origin poem,” she said. “One that explains how to win the Agon.”

Castor’s grip noticeably tightened on the thin band of gold. She couldn’t bear the thought of looking up at his face for his reaction. “Why do you think that?”

A rattling dread passed through Lore as the reality of her situation sank in.

Before coming here, Lore had wanted to find the new poem for two reasons. One, because she knew Wrath was searching for it himself, and would risk venturing out of hiding for it, giving Athena the rare chance to cut him down. The second, to keep it from falling into the hands of any god, new or old, who could use it to become a true immortal with unimaginable power to crush or subjugate humanity.

Now, it seemed, she had a third: for Castor.

If the poem revealed the Agon could only end when a single victor emerged, it would have to be him.

But she had already allied with another god. One who wouldn’t hesitate to kill Castor at the first opportunity.

“Lore?” Castor prompted. “Why do you think that?”

“It was another warning I got this morning,” Lore said. “From someone else.”

“I’ll see if Van’s heard anything,” Castor assured her. “This will at least help focus his search.”

When she risked a glance beneath her loose strands of hair, Castor was looking at her jaw. At the long scar that ran down her face.

Her lungs felt like they had been wrapped in burning steel. They spasmed painfully as she took in her next breath.

Scars, her father used to tell Lore and her sisters, are tallies of the battles you’ve survived. But Lore hadn’t earned this one; she’d been branded with it.

“I don’t remember that one,” he said.

She ignored the question in that.

“I heard about your family,” Castor began. “Your parents . . . the girls . . .”

“I don’t want to talk about that,” she said sharply. “Isn’t one of the perks of godhood that you get to stop caring about the lives of pitiful mortals outside your bloodline?”

His jaw tightened. “Lore, I’m still Castor.”

She shook her head with a sad laugh, even as her whole chest seemed to clench.

“I am. I am.” The crown fragment fell to the ground again as his hands closed over her wrists, as if the touch could somehow make her understand. It seemed to spread through her blood, sparking her nerve endings, and was more than enough to prove the lie in his words.