“Do you know where their weapons stocks are?” Athena interrupted. There was a frightening look of concentration on her face. “Where their vaults are hidden?”

“A few of them,” Van said. “I have no doubt they have more than I know about here in the city and abroad.”

“A few would suffice,” Athena said.

“Where are you going with this?” Lore asked.

“There is more than one way to kill a king,” Athena said. “You can bleed the life from him, or you can sap his men’s confidence in him.”

Van caught on to her meaning. “Hitting his weapon stocks might shake his hold on the hunters who flocked to him thinking he was the more powerful leader and protector.”

“As he has dedicated so many hunters to searching for Melora and his rival gods, these vaults and weapons stores may not be as well-guarded as in the past,” Athena said.

“The remaining Achillides still loyal to Castor are in desperate need of weapons,” Van said. “And I have to imagine it’s the same for Iro and her hunters. The locations all observe the same shift-change hours. We could strike as early as tomorrow morning.”

“We can find other weapons,” Castor said stubbornly. “A raid isn’t going to do anything but make him double his efforts to find Lore and speed up his plans. We need help. We need someone with Artemis’s skills—”

“We are not going to waste time looking for Artemis right now,” Lore cut in sharply.

Castor tried to seek out her gaze, his brows drawn in surprise. A lance of guilt shot through her, but Lore pushed it away. Athena was right. Artemis was nothing more than a distraction at this point.

“Guys,” Van said. “It’s not an either-or. We can do both at once. I’ll run a continuous search for Artemis in Argos—”

“You just said a minute ago you haven’t been able to find her,” Castor said. “We need to go out and look ourselves.”

“You keep forgetting that you’re a target, too,” Lore said, “and that there are still hunters looking for a shot at godhood.”

Castor’s jaw set.

“We’ll look for her after the weapons raids, all right?” Lore said, softening her stance. “The Kadmides will be distracted and trying to regroup. It’ll be safer for you to be out in the open.”

“I don’t care about being safe,” he told her.

Her nostrils flared as she drew in another long breath. “Well, sorry. I do.” She turned to Van. “Tell the Achillides which weapons stores to raid and give me one or two locations and a time I can text to Iro.”

He looked to Castor. The new god nodded.

“I’ll run the search,” he promised Castor. “And I’ll put out more feelers through my sources, too—”

Van’s phone vibrated on the table. He scooped it up, the screen flashing against his dark skin as he scanned the new message there. “The Kadmides contact says he has something on Wrath’s next moves we may be interested in.”

Lore’s heart leapt. “But?”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea anymore,” Van said. “Not after what happened with Belen and now this—something about it doesn’t feel right. He’s insisting he’ll only meet with Miles.”

“Because he hates you,” Miles reminded him. “I can do it.”

“You can, but it doesn’t mean you should,” Van said.

“How many times do I have to prove you wrong?” Miles demanded. “I can—”

“No,” Van snapped, rounding on him. “You’re not one of us, and you don’t get a say, all right?”

Miles rose, confusion twisting into anger at the ice in Van’s expression. “And you don’t get to tell me what to do. Do I really have to keep reminding you that you wouldn’t have gotten this far without me?”

“Wrath just had two innocent children killed,” Castor reminded him. “If this is some kind of trap, I can only imagine what he’ll do to you.”

Miles moved closer to Lore’s side until he was on the opposite side of the room from the others. “Good thing he won’t catch me, then.”

“We’re doing this for those little girls,” Lore insisted.

Castor leveled her with a piercing look. “Which ones?”

Lore’s body went cold. She drew in a deep breath, holding it until her chest began to ache.

“I’ll go with Miles,” Castor said. “I’d feel better knowing he has someone there to protect him.”

“Because I can’t?” Lore shot back. “If anyone is going, it’s me.”

“No,” Miles said. “I mean, thank you both, but no one is coming with me. The guy is super tetchy and won’t go through with the meeting if he suspects I brought someone with me. And he might have something we really need, or at least a lead on Wrath’s current location.”

Van kept his eyes on Castor, gauging his response. “He wants to meet tomorrow morning. It would be around the time we’d need to launch the weapons hits, when there’s a shift change on the hunters guarding them.”

“If clever Miles believes he will be successful,” Athena said, “there is no reason for you to stand in his path and deny him.”

Lore felt Castor’s eyes on her again. Her heart began to riot in her chest, even before she heard Miles’s faint “Lore?”

Maybe . . . maybe it was too much of a risk to do the meet right now, given Wrath’s anger. If he did somehow get his hands on Miles, Lore would never forgive herself.

The more she thought about it, the more Lore wondered if Castor didn’t have the right idea about laying low and focusing on searching for Artemis now, instead of carrying out the weapons hit. If they could convince the goddess to ally with them—and that was a big, deadly if—they might not need to rely on the asset’s information or risk the meets. Artemis could track anyone or anything, gathering information as needed.

As if sensing the storm in her mind, Athena drew closer. Calm certainty radiated from the goddess, and, somehow, just being near it was clarifying. It gave courage to the need inside Lore—it gave strength to what Lore knew to be right and necessary.

For the girls, she thought. What Wrath had done deserved a retaliation.