Now and then, the loose cement and ash shifted, but Lore’s footing was steady, and her grip on Castor didn’t waver. She struggled, dragging and pushing and lifting him until her whole body shook and the edge of the crater came within reach.
Lore looked up.
Athena stood a dozen feet away. Her arms were raised above her head, bearing the weight of a massive piece of a nearby building’s stone facade. It hovered over those carrying the victims and the injured away from the site of the explosion. If anyone noticed the massive display of power, they were too grateful to be alive to fixate on it.
The dead littered the street and sidewalk around them, some blown into grotesque shapes, others stretched out in pools of their own blood. It had become a battlefield. Ash and cement dust clouded the air, swirling in mourning patterns before settling over the bodies like funeral shrouds.
Athena waited until the last of the wounded was removed before she lowered her arms, releasing the smoldering debris onto the sidewalk with steadfast care.
Defender of cities. Something uncomfortable stirred in Lore at the thought, and she shoved it away before it could fully take form.
Lore braced herself for the goddess’s fury, to be told how selfish it had been to risk both of their lives. Instead, as she passed through the wall of smoke to reach them, Athena looked at her with those gray, knowing eyes.
“I will carry him,” Athena said. “Let us leave this place.”
Behind her, a tide of uniformed officers and firefighters arrived and fought their way toward the victims and wreckage. Those who had survived fled in pure, primal panic. The dust and powdered debris had painted them pale as ghosts.
Athena lifted Castor onto her shoulder with ease, and they took off at as much of a run as Lore could manage, narrowly avoiding the barriers being set up around the building complex.
“Miles?” Lore gasped out.
“He returned to the house,” Athena told her.
Lore nodded, trying to swallow the bile and ash at the back of her throat.
“Tell me what has happened,” Athena said urgently. “Who was it you pursued?”
Lore relayed the story, her voice halting. She had braced herself for the goddess’s disapproval and fury at the actions Castor had clearly seen as reckless. Instead, Athena gave her a nod.
“What you have done was necessary,” she said. “While it will make the false Ares angry, it will also make him impulsive, and that, Melora, we can use to our advantage.”
“Castor thinks all I’ve done is put a bigger target on everyone’s backs,” Lore said, glancing to him.
“Then it may be time for us to part ways with the others,” Athena said. “They will not understand what must be done now. I see that you blame yourself for what has happened, but is it not the false Apollo who shoulders the blame? You were not the one who wished to follow Belen Kadmou.”
“It’s—” Lore had to draw another breath, her chest was so tight at the thought. She could have fought harder to change Castor’s mind. She should have.
What had happened had been the result of a cataclysmic series of choices, and she couldn’t deny the role she’d played in it.
“And the false Dionysus?” Athena ventured. “What was it he could only tell you?”
All of her thoughts were too frayed, and her head was still pounding. Lore didn’t trust herself not to let the truth slip. “Later. I promise.”
The goddess gave her a curt nod, turning her attention back toward the street.
“I’m sorry for what I said earlier,” Lore said. “About you not caring. Thank you for helping those people.”
Athena might have hated the mortals who had rejected her, but she hadn’t relinquished her sacred role. Pallas Athena, the dread defender of cities.
“I shall always do what must be done,” Athena said. “Yet the question remains—will you?”
Don’t let them pull you back in, Castor had warned her. There’s nothing but shadows for you here now.
But he didn’t understand what Lore finally did. Monsters lived in the shadows. To hunt them, you couldn’t be afraid to follow. And the only way to destroy them was to have the sharper teeth and the darker heart.
IT WAS WELL PAST sunrise by the time they reached the town house. With the crush of emergency vehicles around midtown right at the start of the morning commute, traffic became too unmanageable to try to take a taxi or call for a car.
Lore could only imagine how they looked to everyone they passed by on the street, especially with Athena carrying Castor, but she didn’t care. She couldn’t even think about how they might be tracked, or who might be following them.
Despite the need to get inside and out of sight again quickly, Lore’s feet dragged as they turned onto her block, and all but came to a stop as her home for the last three years emerged through the morning haze.
Looking at it now, its old brownstone, the potted plants lining the steps, the lace curtains peeking through the window—all she felt was revulsion. It suddenly reminded her of the false temple at Thetis House: an illusion made up of static and lies. All the memories she had there were tainted, and for a moment, Lore couldn’t handle the thought of stepping through the front door.
She didn’t fight her anger this time. She let it speak to her.
Use the house. Use it the way he tried to use you.
“What is the matter?” Athena asked her.
Lore shook her head. “Nothing. Let’s get inside.”
Van met them at the front door, ushering them inside with a concerned look. “Is he all right?”
Lore nodded. Hoped. Then she noticed who wasn’t there. “Miles?”
Van sighed. “His internship boss wanted him to go downtown to City Hall to take a shift helping out with media requests and briefings about the attack. He said he’d be back in a few hours.”
The TV was on but muted, flashing with reports about the explosion at Rockefeller Center. But it was the screen of Van’s laptop that caught Lore’s eye from where it faced them on the coffee table. It was playing through a series of videos; every few seconds the view would jump to a different angle. Some shots were clear, others were fuzzier, but they were all tracking a single figure as he made his way across streets.
Miles.
“What the hell is that?” Lore demanded.
With obvious reluctance, Van turned toward his computer, then back to her. His shoulders slumped as he shut the laptop and picked it up. “Let’s . . . let’s get Cas upstairs. I’ll explain.”
Athena did as he asked, carefully navigating the hall without knocking Castor into the walls the way Lore knew she wanted to. She set him down on Lore’s bed, leaving Lore to arrange his heavy limbs into a more comfortable position. His long legs hung off the end of her bed.
“The program is called Argos,” Van said, placing the laptop on her dresser. “I’ve spent years coding it. It was meant to be used to search for gods and enemies through its built-in facial recognition—it can tap into any live security camera footage as long as the camera or its backup system is hooked into the internet.”
Athena leaned toward the screen, watching the small image of Miles on a subway platform, and tried poking it with her finger. Van slid it back before she could accidentally crack the screen, earning a withering look from her.
“You’re telling me,” Lore began, trying not to lose her grip on her last thread of patience, “that we wasted all that time going in circles about where the Reveler was, and you could have just used this system to search for him? Any other secret programs you want to belatedly reveal?”
“It’s not perfect,” Van said. “I have to upload a photo for it to work, and the one I had of the Reveler in his mortal form wasn’t clear enough—and before you ask, I’ve already tried searching for Wrath. If he’s getting around the city, he’s wearing a mask. The system can’t find him.”
Lore drew in a steadying breath. “What is the news saying about the attack?”
�
�Not much, other than that it’s suspected terrorist activity,” Van said. “Now would be an excellent time to tell me what did happen, because all the chatter among the Messengers is that the Reveler is dead and the surveillance footage near the museum, the park, and Rockefeller Center was wiped.”
Of course. Lore had no doubt that the Kadmides had gotten into any footage in Central Park and deleted that as well. She tried to tell him about what had happened at the Frick, about Belen, about the explosion, but it was like her mind couldn’t put the thoughts into words.
“I will tell you the tale of these last hours, Evander,” Athena said.
Lore shot her a grateful look. “I’ll take care of Castor.”
The goddess nodded. “As well as yourself. Rest for now.”
She waited until Athena’s heavy steps pounded out a steady rhythm on the stairs before she ventured into the hall bathroom. Lore braced her hands against the sink, staring at the black soot and bloody scabs caked onto them. Then, when she felt brave enough, she looked at herself in the mirror.
Her hair was wild and covered in pale dust. Her skin had lost most of its color and her eyes were bloodshot and rimmed with bruises, as if she’d fought the night itself with fists and lost. She was surprised no one they’d passed had tried calling emergency services on them, because Lore had never looked more frightening in her life.
Or more like a hunter.
She quickly washed her face, dampening her brush to work through the tangle of her wavy hair before braiding it back. It took a few minutes to clean and disinfect the cuts on her arm, and to wrap the deeper ones with bandages. Knowing the towels she’d used were beyond help, she threw them away and set about wetting new ones to tend to Castor.
Her room smelled of the rancid smoke that radiated off both of them. She stood there a moment, looking down at Castor, at the way his big body overwhelmed the bedframe. Despite the bold lines of his face and his square jaw, he seemed almost boyish to her then. Vulnerable.
Lore brought one of the washcloths to his arms and legs. The cuts there were already healing thanks to his power, but he was covered in grime. She worked slowly, methodically, letting her thoughts unwind and slip away so
she wouldn’t have to face them. Feet. Legs. Hands. Arms.
She had done this countless times at Thetis House after sparring, when it had been nothing more than taking care of her friend and hetaîros. But as she moved to clean his neck and face, Lore felt suddenly untethered at the realization that it wasn’t the same as it had been back then.
Her hand shook as she drew the cloth over and around his lips, struggling with the flush of heat that wound through her. She was angry at herself for kissing him—for crossing a line, for upsetting him, for changing everything.
“Don’t hate me,” she whispered. “Please don’t hate me. . . .”
When she’d finished, and Castor looked like himself again, Lore slumped down beside the bed, leaning back and drawing her knees to her chest. She let her head fall against the mattress and closed her eyes. Athena’s voice found her there, echoing a warning.
They will not understand what must be done now.
When Lore opened her eyes again, the light in the room had changed, deepening to the violet of early evening.
She was disoriented for a moment, trying to remember how she had gotten there and why her body was so stiff. There was a warm weight resting lightly on her shoulder. Castor’s hand had slipped down from the bed, as if needing reassurance, even locked in a deep sleep, that she was still there.
Lore gripped it, pressing it against her forehead as she tried to clear the lingering sleep from her mind.
Her thumb stroked along his knuckles, and she felt—she wasn’t sure what she felt. Before, she’d been so convinced the feelings moving through her, an almost painful fusion of tenderness and longing and protectiveness, had been different from what had existed between them as children. But were they really? Or had absence and time simply drawn them out in a way she could finally understand?
She had had her family. Her bloodline. Her name. Lore had borne the weight of those responsibilities from the moment she first learned the word Agon. Castor, though—Castor had always been different. It felt as if he had been given to her by the gods, and she to him.
And now I’ll lose him to the same gods, she thought, her throat tight. Whether he died or won the Agon, the outcome would be no different. He would never be with her like this again. She would never feel the pulse at his wrist, or press her ear to his heart and hear it echo her own.
Her grip on him tightened. Castor let out a soft, reassuring noise in his sleep, and she thought her heart might shatter as he turned to her, lashes dark against his cheeks. Lore forced herself to stand then, to gently drape his arm to rest against his chest, because the only other option was to give in to the need to sob like a child and beg the gods for a mercy she knew she didn’t deserve.
Quietly, Lore gathered clean clothes and changed in the bathroom. There, she heard the front door open and shut and Miles’s faint voice call out, “Hello?”
She started down the stairs, eager to see him, more than a little desperate to make sure he was all right, but slowed as she caught the sound of kitchen cabinets opening and shutting and the beginning of a quiet conversation.
“—into any problems?” Van asked.
“Would you care if I did?” Miles shot back. Then, a beat later, “Sorry. That was rude. Subway service was screwed up, but otherwise everything was okay. But Lore and the others—?”
“Just resting.”
Lore stepped down the last few steps, careful to avoid the one that squeaked. She edged into the hallway that led to the kitchen. There, she could see the two of them reflected in the kitchen window. Van at the table on his computer, Miles at the stove.
“Want anything?” Miles asked. “I’m making a cup of regular tea, but I can also attempt the weird one Lore made.”
“Nektar? No thanks. I’ve always hated the taste of it,” Van said, not looking up from his computer. Lore heard the clattering of his fingers over the keyboard. “I could use a warm glass of milk, though.”
There was a long stretch of silence. The typing finally stopped.
“What?” Van asked.
“A warm glass of milk,” Miles said, amused. “Okay. Coming right up, grandpa.”
Van snorted, but turned back to whatever it was he was working on. Behind Lore, in the living room, the TV was on, but the volume was at a low murmur. She focused on the sound of it, on the breath that eased in and out of her chest.
After a few minutes, just as Lore was tempted to announce herself, Miles set the two mugs down on the table and opened his own laptop. Knowing him, Miles picked the seat right next to Van just to playfully annoy him, but Van couldn’t resist trying to steal a look at Miles’s screen.
“Can I help you?” Miles said, moving it away.
“Are you . . . are you searching Greek mythology on Wikipedia?” Van asked in disbelief.
“What?” Miles said defensively. “I’m a little behind the curve in this group. The last mythology unit I had was in sixth grade.”
“You could just ask me whatever you want to know,” Van said.
“Oh really?” Miles asked, leaning back to sip his tea. “I can ask you anything and you’ll actually give me an answer?”
“I didn’t mean anything,” Van said, uncharacteristically flustered. “I meant anything related to the Agon.”
“Okay, here’s one,” Miles said. “A good number of hunters from your bloodline abandoned Castor, so why are you so loyal to him?”
Lore about fell over when Van actually told him.
“Castor is the only . . .” Van seemed to struggle for the right words. “He’s the only friend I’ve ever had. The only one willing to be my friend, all right?”
“All right,” Miles said softly.
“No—” Van said. “Don’t do that. Don’t feel sorry for me. It’s just the way it was.
Unlike everyone else, he never looked down at me for not wanting to fight, and for being relatively bad at it. He didn’t—still doesn’t—like fighting either.”
“I was going to try to draw an analogy to me in PE, but I’m going to rescind that,” Miles said. “Given that your physical education involved learning how to murder people.”
That got a soft laugh out of Van. “I know you think I’m being . . . hard. But all I care about is protecting him and making sure he stays alive this week. I couldn’t help him before, when he relapsed and his cancer came back. I couldn’t convince him to stop going to training when we spoke on the phone, even though it was exhausting him.”
“Why did he stay in training if it was that bad?”
“Because of Lore,” Van said. “He didn’t want to let her down, because she would have lost her training partner and had to leave the program. But more than that, he always wanted to see her. He always wanted to follow her, even if it was right into trouble.”
“Hey now,” Miles said. Lore’s heart swelled at the edge of warning in his voice. “That’s my friend you’re talking about.”
Van blew out a long breath. “I was always a little jealous of how much attention she got from Castor. It sounds stupid now that we’re grown. . . .”
“Oh,” Miles said. “So you’re in love with him.”
Van choked on his milk.
Miles rested his chin on his palm and waited, eyebrows raised expectantly.
“It’s not like that with Cas,” Van said.
“As if you’d be the first guy with a secret, unrequited crush,” Miles said. “Mine was a high school quarterback who was so painfully straight he was practically a pencil. Well, a pencil with bulging muscles and the tendency to answer anything anyone ever said to him with dude.”
Van laughed. Miles grinned.
“I don’t have those feelings for him,” Van said, finally. “I never have.”
Miles let out a soft, knowing hum. Van took a sip of his milk. Miles did the same with his tea.
“And anyway, why are you so loyal to Lore?” Van pressed. “You barely knew anything about her past, and what little you did know was a lie.”
Lore Page 27
