So up she went, retracing the same path she’d taken down, feeling more unsettled with each passing moment. An unbearable heaviness anchored in the pit of her stomach. Lore fought her way up the last steps, gasping for breath as the bleak panic circled back to her.
Wrath.
His voice—it had echoed in the jagged parts of her, stirring up images of her parents and sisters she had fought for years to suppress.
If the House of Theseus had allied with him, it would add hundreds of bodies between him and Athena; the old god would never get close enough to uphold her end of their oath. The thought scalded her.
It’s actually worse than that, she realized.
If Wrath was working his way through the other gods, old and new, his hunters would come after Athena relentlessly. Aristos Kadmou had never been one for small purposes or quiet aims. He was clearing his enemies from the game board, and whatever he was planning wouldn’t end there.
And Cas . . .
Lore had so few ties to her past life that the thought of finding another one had been a powerful drug, whether she wanted to admit it or not. She had stopped believing in the Fates years ago, but she could see it so clearly in her mind then, the gleam of their blades as they gleefully cut away everyone and everything until she had nothing, and no one.
“Get a grip, you blubbering wine sack,” Lore muttered. She had a good and decent life here in the city, a real home. And she had Miles, who was still waiting for her back at the house with a god who would gladly wear his blood.
But she wanted the one person who had always been able to settle her, whether it was her temper or fear. She wanted the one person she had always been able to look to, knowing she’d find him there.
She wanted Castor.
Lore bit her lip, struggling to swallow the thickness in her throat. She found the door she’d entered through, gripping the handle. It rattled, but didn’t budge.
“Oh, perfect,” she groused. Lore tried the door again, this time with more force. “I don’t have time for this.”
She pushed aside her borrowed robe, feeling around the back pocket of her shorts for the piece of plastic to jimmy the lock. There was nothing in it but lint.
Shit.
She must have dropped it as she’d come through the French doors, or set it down while she was changing.
The candles in the hallway were burning low, flickering out. The smell of smoke and hot wax was everywhere, mingling with the incense still rising from below. Lore licked her dry lips, trying to assess her options through her exhaustion and nerves. She moved on to test the next door in the hallway. Then the next. And the next.
“Of course I understand,” someone said, their voice drifting up the stairs. Heavy, quick footsteps followed. “The security breach—I worry—”
A curse blazed through Lore’s mind as she hurried to the next door, already drumming up a thousand possible excuses for what she was doing. Walking rounds, investigating a noise, retrieving my purse, wanted to be alone . . .
None were necessary. The last door on the hallway, one with a security keypad, was ajar. She slid inside, shutting it firmly behind her, breathing hard beneath the mask.
The room was dark, but there was just enough sun coming through the tinted skylight to fully illuminate it. A large, impressive bed canopied with white silk sat at the center, right between two bricked-over windows. A wardrobe that looked to have been passed down through centuries was up against one wall, painted with a fading pastoral scene of cattle and farmers. Plush cushions were arranged like a flower’s petals on the floor, and everywhere, scattered around the room, were elaborate candelabras waiting to be lit.
The smell of fresh paint still clung to the air, and the carpets looked too pristine to be anything other than brand-new. This had to be Philip and Acantha’s room, newly restored for their residence during the Agon.
A movement on the bed drew her eye. At the foot of it slept an enormous shaggy dog. White had gathered on the muzzle of its bearlike face and the tips of his long ears. His black coat was dusted with it, as if he’d only just come in from running through a snowy Central Park with Lore and Castor.
A thin line of drool stretched from his mouth to the silk duvet. His big eyes slid open. He raised his head as if in recognition.
“Chiron?” Lore whispered.
She lifted the mask to get a better look at him, a small burst of happiness lighting through her. He was still alive—he had to be, what, fourteen now? She approached the Greek shepherd slowly, holding out her hand.
The dog had been Castor’s constant companion, practically from the time the boy had been small enough to ride on Chiron’s back. He’d faithfully trotted after her and Castor like a beleaguered nanny on their many adventures through the city.
His tail swished against the silk duvet, and Lore was strangely relieved when he licked her fingers in greeting.
“I missed you, too, you big dope,” she said, stroking his ears. “I don’t suppose you’ve learned how to speak human and could tell me how to get out of here?”
The dog lowered his head and promptly returned to his nap.
“Yeah,” Lore muttered. “That’s what I thought.”
The thick rug absorbed her steps as she circled the room. No balcony—no windows, except for the skylight. The same was true of the surprisingly luxurious bathroom attached to it. Lore kept catching glimpses of her irritated expression in its black marble.
She cast another look at the skylight, considering. If she could get up there, she might be able to pry it open enough to slide through, but there would still be the hunters on the roof to deal with—hunters in prime fighting condition. Lore was currently white-knuckling the last remaining shreds of her pride, but even she could acknowledge that there was no comparison between fighting hunters and beating up spoiled rich kids.
The dog opened one eye.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she told him. “I’m actively planning my escape.”
Chiron’s head swung toward the door. A moment later, Lore heard them, too.
“Be assured that we will . . .” a muffled voice said, growing louder as it approached.
Lore put her mask back on and dove under the bed, only to roll back
out when she realized she could still be seen from the door. She started for the wardrobe, but Philip or Acantha would need to change at some point, and while Lore could explain away a lot of things, she wasn’t sure she could pull off a decent explanation as to why she was crammed inside their armoire. Which left the worst option.
She tucked herself behind the—hopefully—decorative wood changing screen in the back corner of the bedroom as the door was unlocked and opened. There was a gap between two of its panels, just wide enough for her to watch as three men entered.
In an instant, Lore realized her mistake.
This wasn’t Philip and Acantha’s room.
CHIRON STOOD UP ON all fours and growled. Lore jumped at the sound. She had never heard him bark the way he did then, deep and rumbling.
“Easy, beast,” Philip said, holding out a calming hand to him. “Down.”
Chiron’s posture was rigid, his head lowered and tail tucked . . . but he wasn’t staring at Philip. He was eyeing Castor.
What little color was left in the new god’s face faded. He watched the dog, his body rigid, until Van stepped between them.
“I’ll remove him,” Philip said. “He does not . . . seem to remember you.”
“It’s fine,” Castor said sharply. “What I want to know is how in the hell Wrath accessed your feed.”
“The technicians are being questioned,” Van said. “I’ll take my own crack at them and the system. Chances are, they just hacked in without any help within Thetis House. I’m more troubled by the fact that Wrath is capable of using his power this way.”
“My immediate priority is the protection of our bloodline’s god. It’s only a matter of time before they attempt a more direct strike,” Philip s
aid. “The guards will come for you, my lord, when it is time to move to a more secure location outside the city.”
“Do you think that’s really necessary?” Van asked. “If they do in fact have a spy in our bloodline, they’ll always know our moves before we make them. It is a huge risk.”
“You are not archon of this bloodline, Messenger,” Philip said. “This is my decision.”
Messenger—of course. That was the pin Van wore, a gold wing to indicate his status as the bloodline’s emissary. The role meant little more than spying now, but the Messengers were protected from the killing under an oath between the houses. That way, they could carry messages without fear of death and handle the exchanges of bodies collected by other bloodlines.
“Are you sure this isn’t your rivalry with Aristos Kadmou speaking in place of your reason?” Van didn’t have to raise his voice to give his words an edge.
Lore was shocked that they couldn’t hear her ragged breathing.
“Evander, son of Adonis,” Philip hissed. “Speak to me in such a way again and I won’t merely strip that pin from you, I’ll take your other hand.”
Other hand? Lore leaned forward.
She could see it now—the way the fingers on his right hand were slightly longer and stiffer than the left. He had movement in them and could cup the hand, but any shift was slower and the range more limited. He, like many of the hunters, had lost a part of his body and had replaced it with an advanced prosthetic.
Damn, Lore thought.
It had to have been some kind of sparring accident. Van’s right hand had been his dominant hand, at least as far as she could remember from the few training sessions he’d attended while his parents were conducting business in the city.
While some hunters fought to reenter training to learn new styles of fighting better suited to their changed bodies, and thereby stay in the hunt, most were pushed into a kind of early retirement in a noncombat role, like archivist or healer, by their archon.
Lore had always found that practice infuriating; if someone wanted to fight, if they wanted to strive for kleos, they should be allowed to, no matter the circumstances.
“If we could have a prophecy, my lord,” Philip began again, turning to Castor, “we might be able to anticipate the Kadmides’—”
“How many times do I have to tell you that there won’t be any prophecies?” Castor said. “It is not one of my powers. I feel like I must yet again remind you that while I have some of Apollo’s power, I am not him.”
Lore held her breath as the new god took a few steps in her direction, removing his gold gauntlets and placing them on the small table beside the screen.
Philip steeled himself, but nodded. “Yes, my lord. Of course, we all remain eager to hear the tale of how an innocent boy of twelve bested one of the strongest of the original gods and ascended. Perhaps you might speak to one of the historians of our bloodline—”
“Enough,” Castor said, the word strained. He was now so close that Lore could smell the incense smoke clinging to his skin. For a moment she was sure the new god’s eyes had flicked up to meet hers, but he moved toward the bed. “I would like to rest before we travel.”
“Cas— My lord,” Van began. “Perhaps we might discuss—”
“I said enough,” Castor said, gripping one of the bedposts so hard it cracked. “Summon me when the time comes to leave.”
Philip gripped Van’s shoulder and drew him toward the door. “There are hunters posted outside. Is there anything else I can provide you, my lord?”
“Just your absence,” Castor said, still not turning around.
“Lock the door behind us,” Van reminded him.
Castor nodded, but made no move to do so until they had both left the room and several long moments had passed. He turned, knocking his knee into the trunk at the foot of the bed, and he swore. Lore would have laughed at the sight of a powerful god hopping and grimacing, except that his motions seemed even stiffer than they had before.
He tried to stretch his arms across his broad chest, to roll out his neck. He turned the door’s three dead bolts and pressed a nearby button on the wall. Lore jumped as a metal door slid down to cover it. Locking himself in.
Trapping her in with him.
Chiron growled as Castor tried to approach him, offering his hand the same way Lore had. The dog’s lips pulled back, his snout wrinkling viciously. Castor didn’t pull his fist back until Chiron lunged, snapping at his knuckles.
“You know me,” he whispered. “You do.”
Lore pressed her hand to her mouth again to keep from making a sound. Of course Chiron didn’t remember him. This wasn’t the boy he’d loved so fiercely and protected. This was . . . something else.
There was nothing to be afraid of; he had come to her for help—he had no reason to kill her, even for trespassing in this house. But, still, Lore couldn’t bring herself to move. She felt like one of the statues of old, forever trapped in one pose, eyes eternally open.
The dog’s mouth relaxed and he quieted enough for Castor to try approaching again. As his hand came to hover over the dog’s back, Chiron stood and moved. He curled up on the mountain of pillows, giving the new god a look of deep suspicion.
Castor stared back at him, no traces of warmth or hope left in his expression. Something dark seemed to pass deep within him as he circled the room, his breathing deepening, becoming labored. He stopped now and then, running a hand along the raised damask of the wallpaper, the silk of the sheets and curtains, the curved edges of the flowers carved into the back of a chair.
It was like a silent ritual of some kind, each stroke of his fingers reverent. Lore could just make out his profile and the endless storm of emotions that crossed his face. He muttered something to himself she couldn’t hear.
Finally, he stopped at the center of the room, shuddering. Reaching up, the new god slid the crown from his dark hair and held it between his fingers. There was a quiet snap as he broke it in two and let the pieces fall to the floor.
But there was no sound at all as a hidden panel in the wall behind him swung open and a hunter wearing the mask of the Minotaur stepped silently into the room.
Castor straightened, rising slowly to his full height, and looked back just as the hunter pulled a small gun from inside his robes. For a moment, he did nothing but stare at the hunter. He didn’t move. He didn’t seem to even breathe.
Shit, she thought. Shit, shit—move!
He didn’t. The hunter fired.
Lore shoved the screen down, reaching for her screwdriver. It was no knife, but it did spiral through the air the way she’d hoped. It glanced off the attacker’s mask, knocking him to the ground.
She launched forward as the hunter scrabbled back toward the secret door, too furious in her fear to let him escape.
The hunter slid a long dagger out from the hilt at his side. Chiron leaped to his feet on the bed, barking wildly—it was enough of a distraction for Lore to seize the small marble bust on the dresser and smash it against the hunter’s head. Once. Twice.
The assassin slumped to the ground, unmoving. Blood trickled out from beneath the dark hood. Lore shoved it back and ripped the mask away, revealing Philip Achilleos’s slack face.
“Bastard,” she seethed. And a traitor, too, hiding behind another line’s mask. It wouldn’t have protected him from the kin killer’s curse, just as it hadn’t protected him from her.
Chiron whined, snapping Lore out of the fight’s daze. He was near where Castor had fallen to the floor, sniffing his hand. Lore retrieved her screwdriver and scrambled over to the new god, searching him for any signs of a bullet or wound. There was only a small feathered dart near his heart—a tranquilizer.
She added coward to the archon’s tally. He hadn’t wanted any resistance from the new god as he drove a blade into Castor’s heart and ascended.
“Oh, damn you!” She gripped the front of Castor’s robes, shaking him. “You could have avoided that easily—snap out
of it!”
His head lolled back. She pressed an ear against his chest, but couldn’t hear anything over her own heartbeat.
“Castor?” she said, shaking him. “Cas!”
He didn’t respond. Lore pressed the heel of her hand against his chest, driving it down and down and down. Castor surged up, gasping. He twisted onto his side, disoriented, his legs and arms sliding against the carpet.
“Cas . . .” Lore began, reaching for him.
The new god dragged himself farther away, throwing out a hand toward her.
Her sharp gasp was the only sound Lore managed before the air turned to fire in her lungs, and a writhing mass of heat and light blasted out from his fingertips.
LORE HAD BEEN RAISED with a blade in her hand.
She’d drilled for endless hours and days with practice staffs, blades, spears, and shields, repeating those deadly movements until she no longer had the strength to hold up her weapons. The hilts had left dark grooves of memory in her palms, like the rivers in the Underworld. She’d nurtured those calluses, thickening her skin so it no longer shredded.
Lore had wanted her body to remember it all: the weight of the weapons, the angle of the strike, the exact power she needed to coax from her muscles. Some part of her had always understood that there would come a time when her mind emptied with exhaustion or pain, and all she’d be left with was that work, that practice. A moment when ingrained skill finally blurred into reflex.
Like now.
The armoire behind her exploded into thousands of splinters, catching in her hair and skin. She didn’t feel any of it. Didn’t waste a breath. She dove away, gasping.
Mask, she thought, trying to flip it off her face. Its laces had become tangled in her hair, and she couldn’t pull it away, no matter how hard she clawed at it.
The wind was knocked out of her as she slammed into the wall behind her. Castor’s arm banded over her chest like a steel bar.
He shifted his arm, bringing it up against her throat. Black gathered at the edge of her vision as her air supply was cut off. There was no emotion in Castor’s face; it was as if he, too, was acting on pure instinct now, his body striving to survive.
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