Lore

“Tell me,” he began, keeping his tone light, “how’s your Castor?”

With the sun behind him, Lore couldn’t see his face.

“He is not my Castor,” she said. “He is my hetaîros.”

“Ah,” her father said, innocently. “I never had a hetaîros of my own, just my father. Do hetaîros see each other outside their training, or must they meet only within the walls of Thetis House?”

Lore bit the inside of her mouth so hard she tasted coppery blood. She saw Castor outside Thetis House all the time. On the days there were no lessons for their class, or they were let out early, and neither her parents, nor her babysitter, Mrs. Osbourne, knew it.

Lore was grateful for her little sisters. They may have stolen her old blanket and Bunny Bunny, but they kept Mrs. Osbourne’s gaze constantly turned away from her.

“He is training more and more with Healer Kallias now,” Lore said, trying not to sound as hurt as she felt by it. One day, Castor would be the best healer the Achillides had, but until then, she didn’t want to work with any of the others who had lost their partners to training for the archives and weapon-smiths. “I guess I wouldn’t mind seeing Castor outside of training. . . .”

“Outside of training—for instance, when you went to Central Park last Tuesday?”

Lore slowed, her mind whirling with panicked excuses. She could say she had to walk home a different way because of traffic, or construction—

“Ah-ah,” he said. “No lie was ever righted by another lie.”

She opened her mouth, then closed it again.

“Promise me that you won’t go again without an adult,” her father said.

Lore made a face and received a warning look that instantly erased it.

“Why?” she asked, confused.

“Because I said so, Melora,” he said. “And because it’s not safe.”

Lore’s jaw dropped. Not safe? Yesterday her instructor had showed her which ribs to slide her blade through to strike the heart. She had practiced the move this morning in front of the bathroom mirror. “I’m fine, Papa. I always bring my knife with me.”

Her father stopped again, drawing in a sharp breath. A look passed over his face that Lore didn’t understand. Not fear, exactly—more like she’d punched him in the stomach and he was fighting not to double over. He was silent for a long while.

“I’m sorry?” she whispered. That was usually the answer he was looking for.

He shook himself out of his trance, taking her hand again. “What have I told you about your knife?”

“I can only use it at Thetis House or home,” she dutifully repeated. Which was stupid. All hunters needed their weapons on them at all times, even between the Agons. But the words still didn’t make him happy.

He glanced around at the people walking by them, oblivious or checking their phones. Then he switched to the ancient tongue. “Because the Unblooded will not understand. They will take you away if they catch you with a weapon like that.”

“I can defend myself!” The words burst out of her. “I am the best in my class. Instructor calls me the Spartan—”

“Not even the Spartans were Spartan, Melora,” her father said.

Lore pulled back, out of his reach. She hugged the parcel to her. Her thoughts became a confusing tangle. “What do you mean?”

He knelt down to look her directly in the eye. “It’s not always the truth that survives, but the stories we wish to believe. The legends lie. They smooth over imperfections to tell a good tale, or to instruct us how we should behave, or to assign glory to victors and shame those who falter. Perhaps there were some in Sparta who embodied those myths. Perhaps. But how we are remembered is less important than what we do now.”

Lore’s heart began to beat very fast. She clutched the parcel hard enough to rumple its brown paper. “But our legends are true. Our ancestors, the gods—”

“If there were once heroes, they are all gone now,” her father said, rising. “Only the monsters remain. Your courage has always been great, chrysaphenia mou. For some monsters, that will be enough to scare them off—but there will be others, bigger beasts who will delight in the chase. Do you understand?”

Lore said nothing. Her anger growled in her chest, bold and gnawing. She could take care of anyone—or anything—that tried to strike at her. Monsters had fangs, but that was why lionesses were given claws.

“Do you understand?” he repeated, sharper this time.

“Yes, Papa,” she said sullenly.

“Castor’s father is an acquaintance of mine,” he said. “I’ll speak to him about arranging times for you to see him outside your lessons and ask Philip Achilleos for permission, if I must. But you—you must promise me.”

“I promise,” she said, then silently added, To be more careful than I was before.

They started walking again, rejoining the flow of people making their way across town. Lore stayed close to her father’s side, trying to avoid being jostled by roving school groups as they crossed Fifth Avenue. Lore didn’t spare them another look. They weren’t like her.

“Your sister will join you at Thetis House soon. Would you like that?”

Lore shrugged. She couldn’t imagine Pia, with her wide eyes and her little fingers always stained with paint, taking the hits from her classmates’ training staffs. The thought made Lore’s chest growl again, though she wasn’t sure why.

“What shall we do for her birthday?” he asked, switching back into English.

Lore shrugged again. She already knew what she would get her sister as a gift—a promise to make their bed and braid her hair every day until summer was swept away by autumn winds.

“A movie?” she ventured. Her father didn’t like them much, but maybe this once . . .

“A picnic?” he suggested instead.

“A trip to Central Park Zoo?” she offered.

On and on, they traded ideas, until they ran out of things they had done and had to invent things that they couldn’t ever do.

“A trip to the moon?” Lore said.

“A dance with winged horses?”

Lore shifted the parcel in her hands. It wasn’t heavy, but the clinking inside made her wonder.

“A walk to wherever we’re going?” she suggested innocently.