“My one job for Wrath was to find you,” he said without preamble. “He thinks you have the aegis, and he’s going to do just about anything to get it back.”

The black at the edge of her sight grew, and a prickle of numbness found her fingertips. It wasn’t anything she didn’t already expect, but the seed of fear her conversation with Iro had planted finally bloomed.

“Why?” Lore managed to say. “The Kadmides have it—”

“There’s no point in lying to me.” The new god turned toward her, and she couldn’t tell if it was revulsion or pity that crossed his face. “You humiliated him. His entire bloodline knows the truth, even if they won’t reveal it to the others. Aristos Kadmou, bested by a young girl. But it creates a problem for you, doesn’t it?”

Lore shook her head, unable to speak.

“I did find you, you know,” the Reveler said. “It was a hell of a thing—a total fluke in the end because I went looking for him, and he’d found you first.”

“Who are you talking about?” Lore breathed. “Who found me?”

“Hermes,” the Reveler said. “You know where he was those years he disappeared—you know, because he was with you.”

LORE TOOK A STEP Back. “No. I never saw him. I didn’t. . . .”

“All of those years, he wasn’t making plans for his own survival. He was protecting you,” the Reveler said. “An idiotic move.”

The Reveler looked at the fountain, the bloodied water.

“He picked such a pathetic form, but it worked on you, didn’t it? That frail old man. Made you feel sorry for him. Made you want to help him.”

“I . . .” Lore said. “No, he . . . no . . .”

“Did you really think some stranger would go to such great lengths to pay you back? Give you a fecking new home and sweet little life?” His tone turned mocking. “He protected that house, and you. No one could come inside unless they were invited. Took me days to work it out once I found that brownstone. That there was something—someone—there I couldn’t see. He used his power to turn you invisible to all us gods. Clever Hermes. You’re just a lucky little shit that no one else figured it out.”

“That’s impossible,” Lore said, struggling to keep her voice steady. But Castor’s words had already risen again in her memory. I tried to find you for years, but it was like you vanished. There was no trace of you left.

“Is it?” the Reveler cooed back. “Gods can fecking shroud themselves in mist and disappear from the sight of mortals and other celestials. He gave something to you, didn’t he? Something you wore all the time that used his power to invoke the averting gods. ’Course, he would have enchanted it to make you feel inclined to keep it on, no matter what. He would have made your stupid little brain think it was your idea all along. That you loved it.”

Lore’s hand drifted up to her bare throat. The feather necklace.

Her head began to pound, hammering in time with her heartbeat.

“Its protection lasted until his death,” the Reveler continued. “That’s the only reason any of us, including your two godly friends, can see you now.”

Lore curled her hands into fists to keep them from trembling. She shook her head, but her mind was already beginning to make the connections, to find the truth in his words. It couldn’t have been a coincidence that the necklace’s clasp had broken the night of Hermes’s death. . . .

“Even after I found the house, Hermes still wouldn’t see me,” the Reveler said. “Hermes wouldn’t say a word to me, no matter how many times I came, no matter how hard I tried to convince him to come with me and serve Wrath. No matter how many times I swore on the River Styx I’d never betray him or his secret.” He whirled on her. “And all because of you—a little piece of shit who should have been snuffed out with her family.”

The Reveler drew up his hand, as if to grip her neck again, but left it hovering in the air.

With each heartbeat, the Frick began to disappear. Colors and light swirled around her, painting the image of her street, of the town house. Lore’s head felt as heavy as if she’d drunk an entire bottle of wine.

“You . . .” Her lips had lost all feeling. “You’re— That’s not right—Gil—”

She saw Gil in the living room, switching on his creaky record player, pretending the broom was his dance partner as music filled the air. But as Lore came closer, she saw that the old man’s feet were hovering over the floor.

“Gil?” The Reveler let out a wicked laugh. “Is that what he called himself?”

The image of Gil transformed before her. He grew taller, his arms and legs muscled, the skin soft with youth. A faint glow rose around him.

“I saw his disguise,” the Reveler said, sounding far away. “No wonder you trusted him. It must have felt like a fecking fairy tale.”

Lore felt herself start to double over as the tide of memories washed through her, all rinsed of their happy lies.

“No,” she said. “You’re lying—”

But . . .

What were the chances that Gil had lain in the street for hours that night and no one else had heard the attack or his cries for help? That he would have been violently mugged in a small, peaceful village? Even the doctor had been shocked that an attack had happened there.

Gil had never pressed Lore about her own injuries, then or years later. He never questioned her motives. He had welcomed her into his home. He had left her everything when he’d died. . . .

When he’d died, just months before the start of the Agon.

Hermes would have known that he—that Gil—would vanish at the start of the week, brought to wherever the Agon would be held that cycle. That there was a chance he would die during the hunt, leaving Lore to wonder what happened to Gil.

Maybe the “death” of his disguise was a kindness, but it only made Lore angrier. He should have told her the truth. He should have revealed himself.

Lore thought she heard Castor call to her, but she couldn’t bring herself to turn around. Her body wouldn’t move.

It was a lie.

But so was this. The new Dionysus dealt in madness. In illusions.

“Stop it,” Lore said, clutching her head. “I don’t want to see this!”