“You love this city,” Athena said. “It is your pride.”

The goddess all but glowed in the midday sun. The brief respite had given them both the opportunity to dry their shoes and clothes, though it was pointless, given they’d be returning to the floodwaters soon enough.

Lore lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “I might have to share it with eight million other people, but it’s always been my least complicated relationship.”

“Hm.” Athena’s presence was oppressive in more ways than one, but as the last few hours had passed, something had shifted. She was brimming with eagerness, or maybe just the simple anxiety of knowing that it was Wednesday morning, and they had less than half a week left to finish this.

“Hold on to what you feel for your home,” Athena told her. “It will never abandon you if you serve it well. It is not so fickle as mortals.”

Castor’s face rose in her mind. Lore stamped it out before it could linger there long.

“That’s probably true,” Lore said, finally. She leaned over the edge of the roof, quickly searching the sidewalk below. “Where is this girl?”

Athena drank the last of her water, tossing the bottle away. Lore sat back on her heels, and, for the first time, began to doubt their plan. They didn’t have time to wait for the lioness to rest or meet with whoever was inside. They needed another lead.

“What was it that your sister said?” she asked. “That there’s a monster in the river? A killer of both gods and mortals?”

“I would not spare any great thought to my sister’s words,” Athena said. “She was unwell, and did not know her own mind.”

There was something about that, though—something Lore couldn’t place.

“There is still much we do not know,” Athena said. “I feel as if the shards of the truth lie scattered before us. Hermes, the imposter’s desire for the aegis, even the false Apollo.” Her gaze sharpened. “Perhaps he is somehow a true god—or yet another god in disguise—and wished to enter the hunt to ascertain some information?”

“He’s Castor,” Lore said, more sure of it now than she had been with him standing before her. “Somehow . . . he’s Castor. He knew too much from my past to be anyone else.”

“Any god would know such things,” Athena said. “They would ingratiate themselves into your life, subtly guiding you onto a path of their choosing, all with you none the wiser. As I said, we appear to you as what you need or desire.”

“Like Hermes,” Lore said softly. The god had become the one person Lore would have trusted in that moment—a compassionate friend far removed from the world of the Agon. He had played to her fear and anguish.

“Perhaps you are correct and it is Castor of the Achillides,” Athena said. “Apollo is gone. The false god possesses his power, though the feeling is strange—I do not understand it. It has no logical explanation.”

Lore shook her head. Thoughts swirled in her, all those countless doubts and coincidences trying to connect like lightning whipping across the sky.

“There is a lesson to be had in even this. Take my counsel on this matter: it is acceptable, even preferable, to be alone,” Athena told her, “when those around you would hold you back or deceive you. The exceptional among mortals will always stand alone, for no one in the world was made for their task. Take confidence in that, and let it be a poison to your fear.”

A small smile curved on the goddess’s face.

“What?” Lore asked.

“I had forgotten what it felt like,” Athena said. “To take on the mantle of Mentor.”

Lore’s heart gave an involuntary kick in her chest when she realized what that meant.

“No disguise necessary this time,” Lore pointed out, leaning over the edge of the building again. A National Guard patrol was still moving slowly up the street, within eyeshot of the building. She pulled back.

“Indeed,” Athena said, a note of amusement in the word. “It is tiresome to wear another’s face, but men will so often only listen to other men.”

Lore raised her eyebrows, but couldn’t argue with that. “Do you still return to your city? The one named for you?”

“I return to them all,” Athena said. “And I always will, until the last voice calling out to me is vanquished by time.”

“And then what?” Lore asked.

“I will continue to strive to return to my father, and my home,” Athena said. “That is all I desire now.”

Whatever softness had slipped into the goddess’s features disappeared in an instant. Lore felt a touch of ice at the base of her spine at the sight.

“I must tell you something, Melora,” Athena said, the sparks storming in her gray eyes. “And give a warning. I am becoming less certain I can fight the imposter Ares alone. Unlike the false Apollo, I can be killed. As strong as I am, our foe will whittle that strength away. I will need your help to overcome him. . . . Unless, of course, you wish to claim his power.”

Lore drew in a sharp breath. “No. I don’t.”

She never wanted the feeling of being hunted, being trapped, ever again. Ares’s power would drive her mind to the brink.

And make you invincible, her mind whispered.

No. Ares’s power was as much a curse as it was a boon, even as it had brought countless hunters kleos as they’d claimed it. Lore had caused enough damage and death in her short lifetime. But there was that girl inside her, hungry still. The last of her name in all the world. Who would remember her?

Lore shook her head, hugging her arms to her chest. She would fight to restore her family’s honor and glory as herself. She would avenge them as Melora Perseous.

Go get it. The thought moved through her, warm and powerful. Go claim your inheritance. Use it against him.

Even with the aegis, Lore would wither beneath Wrath’s power. But if it was in the hands of someone stronger . . . someone who knew how to wield it, and at its full potential . . .

“You really think you can’t handle him?” Lore asked slowly. It would be a terrifying thing to behold—Athena reunited with the aegis, roaring into battle.

“Only the Moirai could say with certainty,” Athena said. “It pains me to admit such things. Do not ask me this again.”

“But if there was something that could level the playing field . . . ?” Lore began, her voice tight.