Lore

“Only Wrath could have demanded something like this,” Van added. “He must have a good number of hunters searching for you if they’re turning up this many leads.”

Lore forced herself to draw another breath as she returned Van’s phone. “I wounded his pride by escaping his attempt to wipe out the House of Perseus. He’s not going to let it go lightly.”

“No,” Castor said quietly, “he’s not.”

The worry was back, turning his gaze soft. Lore hated that for all of his power, for all of his obvious physical strength, her choices could still bring him back to the boy he’d been. He already had enough to handle this week without needing to fear for her.

“Which is why we’re going to have to get him first,” Lore said.

Athena nodded. “Indeed.”

“If we’re going to find the Reveler, we need to get going,” Van said. He stood and quickly split the remainder of the money between his leather backpack, which he handed to Castor, and the other, simpler one Miles had picked up. “I’ll meet you all there. I’m going to regroup with the remaining Achillides and bring them supplies.”

“Are you going to take the Ody—” Miles began.

“No,” Van said sharply. Lore gave him a pleading look, but he refused to acknowledge it. He wasn’t going to reveal the location of the Achillides to anyone, not even to offer the Odysseides aid. She didn’t know why she had expected anything else this week.

Lore followed Van through the side door to make a case for sharing the location of the warehouse, only to find that Iro had followed her. Iro stepped out into the street, hugging her arms to her chest.

Lore watched Van disappear into the darkness, and was tempted to call after him. Iro, however, spoke first.

“They say his father did that to him.”

“Did what?” Lore asked, turning to her.

“His hand,” Iro said. “The story told to me was that his father was so ashamed of his boy’s unwillingness to fight, his ineptitude for it, that he severed Evander’s sword hand to give him an honorable excuse not to.”

Lore blanched. “No. Tell me that’s not true.”

“I think he did it to himself,” Iro said, her expression turning thoughtful. “Not out of weakness, but strength. The will to decide his own path.”

The words gave Lore her first glimmer of hope that she could get through to Iro. If the girl believed an act like that could be courageous, and hadn’t dismissed it as cowardice the way they’d been taught to believe, there was something for Lore to work with.

“And this hunt, these families who would have Van fight against his will—that’s the world you believe in?” Lore asked her. “The one you feel such loyalty to?”

“No world is perfect. God, mortal, hunter,” Iro said. “I believe in our divine purpose. I believe in honor, and in kleos, and that we will never be destroyed. I believe in it, even if you’ve allowed yourself to be led astray.”

“You know why I left,” Lore said. “Everyone knew what that man was, and no one said a word. Where was the honor in your bloodline elevating him to its highest position? Where was the kleos in that, Iro?”

The girl looked down. “You should have stayed. I would have protected you from them.”

“It wouldn’t have been enough,” Lore told her.

“I don’t believe that,” Iro whispered.

“You don’t have to for it to be true,” Lore told her. “Can you honestly tell me that they wouldn’t have killed me for what I did?”

“I don’t know what they would have done,” Iro said. “We don’t speak of what happened. It is acknowledged only as a terrible accident.”

Of course, Lore thought bitterly. To tell the truth would have dishonored the dead—because it meant admitting that their family’s monster hadn’t been confined to a labyrinth or exiled to some far-off place. He’d walked freely among them.

“I know it feels wrong to you that I’m working with gods,” Lore said. “But look at Prometheus—he brought us fire, even knowing what it would cost him. There comes a point where you have to decide what’s right for yourself and act, no matter the consequences.”

Iro drew in an uneven breath beside her. “We were not born to carry fire.”

“The rest of my family is gone,” Lore said. “I don’t want to lose you again. Please stay with us. Help us.”

Iro closed her eyes and was silent for a long time. “My family is gone now, too.”

“Even your mother?” Lore asked. “You’re sure?”

Dorcas’s presence had lingered like a ghost at the estate; she’d vanished a few days after Lore had arrived, and no one, save Iro, was ever willing to acknowledge or question it. It wasn’t until months later that Iro and Lore had broken into her locked chambers to look for answers. Inside her empty jewelry box they found a slip of paper with a single word on it.

Mákhomai. I make war.

“I can’t go with you to find the Reveler,” Iro told her, her accent softening the words until they seemed to run together in a whisper. “I have a duty to my bloodline. But there’s a debt that has to be paid, even I know this, for none of us would have survived without you.”

The girl stood, her hands clenched before her. Lore waited, struggling to hide her impatience.

“The poem you asked about before,” Iro began. “There is another, more complete version of what Zeus told the hunters at Olympia when he first gave the command to begin the Agon.”

Lore’s lips parted in surprise. “And you know it? The complete version.”

Her heart fell like a stone in her chest as Iro shook her head.

“Our archivist found a letter from centuries ago, forgotten in a safe-deposit box in the Alps,” Iro continued. “From one of your ancestors to one of mine.”

“About its existence?” Lore pressed.

“About where to find it,” Iro said. “Lore, it claims the full text is inscribed on the aegis.”

Lore drew back a step, static burning in her ears as disbelief emptied her thoughts. It felt as if she had run here, to this moment. “That’s impossible. That’s . . . I would have known about it. My father would have known it. I would have—”