The thought of their faces then, when they saw what she had done, made her grin, and her heart gave another excited leap.

“Lo?” Olympia rubbed her eyes, but her voice sounded too sleepy for her to be fully awake.

“You’re dreaming,” Lore whispered. “Go back to sleep, Pia.”

Soon enough, she did, hugging the pillow tight. Lore slowly closed the window, but left it open, just a crack, for when she returned.

Then she descended, dropping the last few feet to the ground, and ran into the dark streets.

THERE WAS NOTHING IN the lane alongside River House.

Not a dumpster, not a car, not even a door leading into the building or a basement. The driveway cut a straight path to Seventy-Ninth Street, blocked only by gates on either end.

“Huh.” Lore kept her back to the building’s wall, trying to give herself a wide enough view of the lane to see whatever it was that she was missing.

Athena stood a few feet away, her gaze sweeping over the filthy water and ground below.

“Maybe we should go,” Lore said. “Someone could come back—”

The goddess stopped and stomped her foot, shifted slightly, and then did it again.

Lore shoved off the wall. “What are you doing?”

“Come,” the goddess said, kneeling in the water. A moment later, she dragged open a hatch—one covered with a thin layer of cement to help disguise it.

“Not bad,” Lore told her, fighting the water as it poured past her and down through the doorway. She leaned forward, taking in the sight of the tunnel below.

“Quickly,” Athena urged.

Lore nodded. As she made her way down the slick metal ladder, she eyed the way the space was rapidly filling with more water. By the time Athena had joined her and shut the hatch, it was up to Lore’s knees—but it was moving, flowing away from them, heading down the length of the tunnel.

Lore switched on her phone’s flashlight app. The pathway was crudely constructed, but wider than Lore had originally imagined.

The tunnel stretched on and on, winding right, then left, seemingly without reason, until, finally, it split. She stopped at the juncture, shining the phone’s light down one tunnel and then the other.

“Which way?” Athena asked quietly.

Lore was about to speak when she heard it—a distinct thud-thud, thud-thud, thud-thud. Almost like . . .

A heartbeat.

Her hand tightened on her knife. She turned right, tracing the sound through more turns and splits.

How far does this go? she wondered. All the way to the East River?

Their path was cut short by another, this one perpendicular to the one they were on. The thud-thud continued, louder and more insistent. They were close.

Lore switched off the phone’s flashlight. She flipped the camera lens and, crouching at the very edge of where the paths met, leaned the phone out just enough for it to capture the image of the hunter there.

The man looked familiar to her, but not familiar enough for a name. Thud-thud. He bounced a small rubber ball against the ground, then against one of two metal doors in the wall opposite from where he sat on his stool. A lantern-style flashlight glowed at his feet.

Lore let her head fall back against the wall, rolling her eyes at herself. Not a heartbeat. Not a monster.

Athena stood over her, eyes narrowed on the screen. Lore switched it off, storing the phone back in her pocket. Pressing a finger to her lips, she motioned for the goddess to wait, then stepped out.

“Excuse me,” Lore said loudly. “Could you tell me how to get to the Statue of Liberty?”

The man startled, jumping to his feet with a sharp inhalation. Lore started to throw her knife toward his heart, but Castor’s face flashed in her mind. At the last second, her hand shifted and she struck his shoulder instead.

“You—” the hunter howled.

Lore dove for the stool and smashed it over his head. The hunter fell face-first into the water pooled on the ground, forcing her to roll him onto his back so he wouldn’t drown.

Her heart was still pounding as Athena stepped over the hunter, pulling Lore’s blade from his shoulder and passing it back to her. Lore had a fleeting memory of what her mother used to tell her and her sisters, the old superstition that a knife passed between people would invite conflict between them.

“Kill him,” Athena told her. “He will be a problem.”

Lore frowned. The man was unconscious. “Yesterday’s body count wasn’t high enough for you?”

“I do not keep tally of such things.” The goddess turned suddenly on her heel, spotting the hunter’s dory leaning against the nearby wall. She made a small noise of pleasure as she lifted it, testing its weight and balance.

Lore returned her focus to the first of the two metal doors in front of them, pressing her ear to its cold surface. Athena guided her back out of the way, then jammed a hand against the heavy padlock. It broke in two, falling heavily at their feet.

The door moaned as she pulled it open.

The chamber was larger than it had seemed on the outside. Metal supports, almost like feet, had been left behind along with a few scattered tools.

Lore retrieved the lantern. “Weird. Why leave a guard down here if there’s nothing to guard?”

Athena’s head tilted back toward the door, catching the sound before Lore did.

“Hello?” a voice called faintly. “Is someone there?”

Lore’s pulse spiked with sudden adrenaline. “Who’s there?”

Athena stepped back over the guard and approached another door on the opposite wall, one Lore hadn’t noticed, which the hunter had been leaning against. She followed close behind the goddess, raising her knife and lowering into a defensive stance behind her. Athena broke the lock, ripping the heavy door open.

A woman cowered at the back of her cell. She was streaked with grime, her dark skin shining with it as Lore lifted the lantern in disbelief.

Struggling onto her feet, the woman shielded her glowing eyes as she rose to her towering height.

This, too, was a face that Lore recognized. This time, however, she knew the name.

Tidebringer.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING here?”

Tidebringer’s voice was hoarse, but the melodic undertones were still there, each word rising and falling like the endless pulse of the sea. The embers of power in her dark eyes flickered as her gaze moved from Lore to Athena. Confusion crimped the new god’s face. Lore wondered if Tidebringer was afraid that she was hallucinating.