Lore

“Miles will do the meet,” Lore said at last. “We’ll carry out the weapons hit in the morning, at the shift change. And if the asset doesn’t have information on Wrath’s location, we’ll start looking for Artemis in the afternoon. All right?”

But even as she said it, Lore knew Athena was right. Artemis would never agree to work with them, and she would never give Castor the information he wanted on Apollo’s death—if she even had it at all. Maybe by then, though, Wrath would have emerged from whatever hole he was hiding in, and they wouldn’t need to risk Castor’s life trying to persuade a goddess whose will was as unyielding as steel.

Van nodded, his face betraying none of his emotions. “I’ll text you the information for Iro, then.”

Lore barely heard the others as they climbed the stairs, no doubt to crash for the rest of the night. Only Castor lingered, one hand on the bannister as he watched Lore pull out her phone. She typed out a message to Iro with trembling hands.

I need your help.

The rage building inside her rose like the smoke from the body of the bronze bull, until she could taste ash in her mouth and her mind blazed with the bloodred words that had been left for her on the wall.

By the time she looked up again, Castor was already gone.

THE LATE-AFTERNOON AIR was heavy with moisture, but it was nothing compared to the oppressive atmosphere that had taken hold of the town house.

After they’d had word from the Achillides that the raids had gone off without any problems or casualties on their part, Lore had gone back to sleep for a few more hours. She hadn’t heard back from Iro yet beyond the girl’s single-word response to Lore’s text with instructions for the weapons hit: Confirmed.

Lore wasn’t worried, though, especially after Van met one of the Achillides hunters and brought home an array of the Kadmides’ weapons. Athena had taken obvious pleasure in laying them out and examining each one, including a proper dory. But any excitement Lore had felt at the success disappeared into the emotional black hole of Van’s and Castor’s silence.

When Lore couldn’t take any more of Van’s judgmental looks as he sat watching Miles’s progress on Argos, let alone the sight of the closed door Castor was hiding behind, she had gone back into her bedroom. There, she finally noticed what Miles had left for her on the dresser.

The feather charm on the necklace winked at her as it caught the sunlight. She hesitated a moment, her finger brushing against its edge.

Never free, she thought.

Lore swept the necklace off the dresser into the small trash can beside it. But she felt its presence, even if she could no longer see it. Needing to escape it—to escape the house—Lore opened a window and crawled out onto the fire escape to make her way up to the roof. There, she watched the heavy gray clouds roll in from a distance.

Lore looked back over her shoulder at the sound of someone on the fire escape, but relaxed when she saw who it was. “You shouldn’t be up here.”

Athena looked around the town house’s bleak roof. There was nothing much to see beyond Lore, two old lawn chairs, and the air-conditioning unit. Truthfully, no one should have been up there, but Miles and Lore sometimes made the climb when the weather was nice and they had wine to drink. They’d talked about doing something with it—a little garden, maybe—but that had been before Gil died.

Before Hermes left, Lore corrected herself, rubbing her arms. She turned back toward the silver thunderclouds gathering to the east.

The goddess avoided the other chair, choosing instead to sit on the rough surface of the roof. She drew her dory across her lap and began to sharpen both points with the whetstone she’d taken from the kitchen.

“It was Hermes.”

She wasn’t sure why it was easier to tell the goddess. Maybe it was knowing that Athena, blunt as the flat edge of a blade, wouldn’t try to console her or make her talk through it.

“What of him?” Athena asked, setting the whetstone aside.

“The man I worked for—the person who owned this house and left it to me.” Lore swallowed. “It was Hermes the whole time. When he disappeared, he came here. The Reveler told me in the museum.”

“Ah,” Athena said. Then added, carefully, “And you believe the imposter?”

Lore nodded. “Apparently Hermes also thought I had the aegis. It must have been a massive disappointment to him when he realized I didn’t and he’d put in—” Her voice caught in a way she hated. “And he’d put in all of that effort cozying up to me for nothing.”

Athena’s lips compressed into a tight line.

“I don’t get it, though,” Lore said. “The Reveler said that Hermes felt indebted to me, and that he had wanted to keep Wrath from getting the aegis. . . .”

“Hermes clearly discovered the existence of the poem,” Athena said, “and hoped to use it to escape the Agon.”

“That,” Lore agreed, “or he had no idea and just wanted the shield to use in the next Agon, and thought I might give it to him willingly if he showed me enough kindness. But why did he feel indebted to me? Why go to such elaborate lengths to maneuver his way into my life when he never asked me about my past, or pushed me on it? He even gave me an amulet that hid me from the sight of gods. He left me this house.”

“I had wondered as much,” Athena said slowly. “As I told you, I had followed your tale through the years and searched for you. I saw you only once, three years ago, walking through the nearby streets, and followed you home. Yet I never saw you again, and at the start of this hunt, all I could do was hope you might still be there.”

The thought of passing within feet of the unseen goddess filled Lore with a strange, delayed dread.

“Do you remember if I was wearing a necklace?” Lore asked. “One with a gold feather charm?”

The goddess considered her question carefully. “You were not.”

It must have been just after Lore had returned with Gil—with Hermes. It had been another two weeks before she’d woken to find the necklace on her nightstand. He’d seemed to believe her birthday was the date on her fake passport. Her real one had already passed.

“You ask why Hermes would enact such a charade?” Athena said. “It is because he is cunning and because he delights in it. Yet he is no fool. If he believed you possessed the aegis, he had a reason. So I must ask you again, Melora—do you possess my father’s shield, and is it in danger of falling into the imposter Ares’s hands?”