Lore

by Alexandra Bracken

  Lore and Castor exchanged a surprised look. Van had moved fast.

  “Can you send him back?” Lore asked. “Sorry. I promise we’ll be out of your hair soon.”

  “You want something to eat before you go?” Mel asked. “Something to take with you?”

  “Pancakes?” Castor asked, before Lore could stop him. She gave him a look, but he stared back at her, shameless.

  “No problem,” Mel said.

  The new god took his turn at the sink, splashing water over his face and arms. Lore opened the bathroom door a crack and shut it again when she saw that it was, in fact, Van coming toward them. He was dressed in jeans and a nice linen shirt, the sleeves rolled up. For a moment, she wondered how he had made it all the way uptown without a wrinkle or sweat stain.

  Van ducked inside the bathroom, relief breaking over his features.

  “What happened?” Castor asked. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” Van told him, though he looked uneasy. “I got out. So did some of the others. I’m waiting to hear back about our hunters that went to look for the bodies.” He handed Castor the plastic shopping bag he’d been clutching. “Here, for you to change.”

  Castor pulled out a pair of tennis shoes, basketball shorts, and an athletic shirt. “Nike? Really?”

  “You’re not exactly easy to shop for,” Van told him, gesturing to Castor’s size. “It was the only thing I knew would fit. Besides, we could use a little victory on our side.”

  “Were you able to get in contact with the Odysseides?” Lore asked.

  Van shook his head. “Not yet.”

  “Pass me your old clothes when you’re done with them,” Lore said to Castor as she opened the bathroom door and stepped out.

  “Why?” Van asked sharply. “What are you going to do with them?”

  “Van,” Castor said, forever the peacemaker between the two of them. “It’s all right.”

  “I’m getting rid of them in a way that’ll confuse the hunters and their tracking dogs,” Lore told him. “Is that answer good enough for you?”

  She didn’t bother to make sure that it was. As promised, Castor passed her the old set when he had changed.

  “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” she told them. “Don’t leave.”

  Lore tore the warm, blood-stained fabric into smaller strips and distributed them into trash cans, sofas left out on the curb, in bus stops, and down in the subway, making as wide of a circle around her neighborhood as she dared. By the time she returned, Castor and Van were in the back hallway of the diner; the Messenger was pacing, the new god savoring each bite of pancake he put in his mouth.

  “Finally!” Van said.

  “Let’s go,” she said, then, calling to the front of the restaurant, added, “Thanks, Mel! I owe you!”

  “Where are we going?” Van asked as soon as they stepped back out into the street.

  Lore forced herself to stop. This wasn’t a conversation for out in the open. “We’re going to my house. But you’re going to have to listen to me very carefully and do exactly what I say when we get there.”

  “Why?” Van asked. “Because if we break your rules, you’ll kick us out?”

  “No,” Lore said evenly, “because, if you don’t, the god who’s already in the house is going to kill you both.”

  Castor choked on his food, pounding a fist to his chest.

  “Surely, I just misheard you . . .” Van began. “Surely.”

  “Now do you see why I didn’t think it was a great idea for Cas to come with me?” she asked.

  “Who—” Van began. His eyes widened as he answered his own question. “No. I can’t believe this. She’s never sought out a mortal’s help before. . . .”

  “She’s never needed a mortal’s help before,” Castor said, tossing the rest of his meal into the dumpster. “What happened?”

  “Wrath came after her and Artemis,” Lore said, keeping her voice low. “And Artemis decided to slow her down the best way she knew how. Blade to the gut.”

  “Damn,” Van said, in mild appreciation.

  “I found her on my doorstep,” Lore continued. “Apparently she’d kept track of me over the years and took a gamble on whether or not I’d want her dead.”

  Van opened his mouth to speak again. Closed it. Gave himself a moment to think.

  “I came to find you because I thought you’d finished your healer’s training,” Lore told Castor. “I stopped the blood loss, but she’s in bad shape.”

  “And why do you care?” Castor asked. “She’s a snake. Let her die, if she hasn’t already.”

  Lore glanced down. “She’s still alive. I’m positive.”

  Van did not miss that, either.

  “You didn’t,” he began slowly. “Tell me you weren’t that stupid.”

  “What else was I supposed to do?” Lore demanded.

  “Let her die?” Van suggested. “Smile in satisfaction at knowing a hunter wouldn’t claim her power?”

  “I wasn’t alone when I found her,” Lore said, hearing the way her voice pitched up. “And she offered me something I wanted.”

  A moment later, Castor had also figured it out. The color leached out of his tan skin, either from anger, or fear, or both. “You bound your fate to hers? What the hell did she promise you to get you to agree?”

  She thought about lying, but it seemed pointless given the danger they were in now. “She promised to kill Wrath.”

  They both stared at her, silent.

  “Oh,” Van said. “Well, that’s great. Aside from, of course, you dying if she does during a week when that’s the principal goal of almost a thousand people. Otherwise a stellar plan, Melora.”

  “I don’t need a lecture,” Lore snapped. “I made a choice, and I’m living with it.”

  “I’ll say,” Castor said, the words rippling with frustration. “Show us the way to your house, then.”

  “You still want to come?” she asked.

  The look he sent her cut Lore to the quick. “Am I supposed to just let you die? You wanted me to heal her, so I’ll heal her.”

  She turned stiffly, letting them exchange their looks behind her back. When Lore was sure they weren’t being watched by any hunters on the street, she led them to the town house in silence.

  “This is it,” Lore said. “We’ll go in through the basement. It’ll get you off the street and give me time to prepare her.”

  There was an extra key hidden behind one of the bricks on the town house’s facade. Lore retrieved it with a soft sigh. “Just stay behind me, all right?”

  She ushered both of them into the crowded basement, locking the door behind them. Castor and Van looked around, taking in the stacks of boxes and plastic tubs.

  “Is this stuff all yours?” Van asked.

  “Are you always this nosy?” Lore groused. “No. And before you ask, I inherited the house from the man I worked as a caretaker for. Gilbert Merrit.”

  “You were someone’s caretaker?” Van said in disbelief. “You?”

  “Van,” Castor said. “Don’t.”

  For once, Lore kept her sharp retort to herself. She turned toward the staircase leading up into the house and called out, “It’s me!”

  Castor made as if to follow her. Lore held out an arm, blocking him. Van, at least, had the sense to hang back.

  “You need to wait,” she whispered. “Just give me a few minutes to preemptively put out the fire your presence is going to cause.”

  Fire was very likely an understatement, given the bloodcurdling glimpse she’d had of the old god’s feelings toward her newer counterparts. She hurried up the stairs, giving Castor one last meaningful look to stay before she opened the door and said, loudly, “I’m coming in.”

  It happened so quickly, time split into snapshots. One, Miles and Athena standing near the fireplace of the living room, the television on behind them. Two, Athena reaching back for something leaning against the wall. Three, her face hardening with a snarl and he
r arm craning back. Four . . .

  Something long and thin flew from her hand, whistling as it cut a bold path across the room. Lore jumped right with a startled gasp, but the weapon had never been intended for her.

  Castor caught the spear just before it lodged in his heart.

  The piece of gum Miles was chewing fell out of his open mouth.

  “Is . . . is that my broom?” Lore gasped. The wooden body of the spear was a distinctive green, worn in the places where it was meant to be gripped.

  She glanced to Miles, both for confirmation and to ensure that he was all right. His mouth stretched into a pained rictus.

  “Yes, it is,” he said between his clenched teeth. “She is very resourceful.”

  Heat flared to her right. Castor’s power surged along the makeshift weapon until the wood turned to ash in his hand. His fierce, unblinking gaze never broke away from Athena’s.

  “That was my broom,” Lore said mournfully.

  “Godkiller!” The room vibrated with the thunderous word. Athena reached behind her once more, feeling for another crudely formed spear.

  Lore stepped back between the two gods, holding her hands out. “Stop—stop it!”

  “You dare to bring this . . . this abomination here, into this sanctuary?” Athena growled.

  “Well, it’s my sanctuary, so yes,” Lore said. “Listen—”

  “This was not part of our agreement, Melora.” Athena did not need to shout to drive her words home like an ax to the skull. “You swore your allegiance to me.”

  “He’s here to heal you,” Lore said, trying a different tactic. “He’s going to help us. It’s a strategy. I thought you’d like that.”

  “Unless you have brought him here for me to kill, I see no strategy,” Athena snarled. “I heard, pretender, that even with Apollo’s power you could not manifest a corporeal form. That you wasted the last pathetic years you have been granted dithering about like a lost yearling.”

  It was only when Miles looked back and forth between them, visibly anxious, that Lore realized they’d all been speaking in the ancient tongue.

  “Well, I’ve never turned a skilled artisan into an arachnid, thrown an infant off a mountain, or cursed anyone into a lifetime of having their liver pecked out by an eagle,” Castor said, “so I suppose I do still have a few things to learn about being a god.”

  Athena wasn’t at her most terrifying when her skin was flushed with fury, or she was snarling deadly promises. It was in moments like this one, when her eyes cooled and her body went still with a predator’s confidence that nothing would escape it. Castor’s hand landed on Lore’s shoulder, as if to gently move her aside.

  She pushed it away, and spoke in English, enunciating each word. “Enough. We don’t have time for this.”

  Lore approached Athena slowly, eyeing the spear that, it seemed, had previously enjoyed a short life as her mop. “I need to tell you what happened. We need his help.”

  “I do not need his aid,” Athena groused. “The others—”

  Lore pulled the one card that would matter most to the goddess, and laid it down without a single word to soften it. “Hermes is dead. Wrath killed him during the Awakening.”

  It was Miles who reacted, gasping a “What? Really?”

  Athena merely stared at Lore, as if waiting for the lie to crumble to dust at her feet.

  “Impossible,” she said, finally.

  “He’s dead,” Castor confirmed. “Tidebringer as well.”

  Van crowded behind them on the stairs.

  “He speaks the truth, Goddess,” he said, finally, mostly in acknowledgment. “We both come here not as your enemies, but as allies.”

  Lore felt the smallest bit of satisfaction when the goddess sized him up with the same intensity Van did others. Maybe because of it, he chose to focus on someone else.

  “Who are you?” he demanded.

  Miles straightened as Van’s gaze fell on him, his ears rimmed with pink. “Hi—I’m Miles. I mean, I’m Lore’s roommate. And friend.”

  “I’m Castor,” the new god said. “This is Evander . . . Van.”

  Van’s streamlined leather backpack looked like a beetle’s shell. He adjusted its straps, giving Lore a sideways look. “What the hell are you thinking, bringing an Unblooded into this?”

  Miles recoiled at the edge of cold disapproval in Van’s words.

  Lore’s anger, though, was still too close to the surface. “He was with me when I found her. In case you’ve lost your grip on it, let me remind you—the real world doesn’t work like the bloodlines. You get a choice on how to live your life when you’re on the outside.”

  “I may be new to all of this, but I’m not useless,” Miles said. “How about you get to know me for longer than ten seconds?”

  “I don’t need more than ten seconds,” Van said.

  Lore’s hands curled into fists at her side. She’d already struggled with the thought of Miles being drawn into the Agon, but the condescension laced through those words—as if she’d intentionally endangered him, as if Miles were nothing—infuriated her.

  “Van,” Castor said, his tone chiding.

  Evander Achilleos had grown up in an elegant home in London, and had been raised by parents who spoke in cut-glass accents and ate their meals on gold-trimmed china, but you would never have known it in that moment. The handful of times his parents had brought him to New York on business trips and he’d trained at Thetis House or joined Lore and Castor in Central Park, he’d at least been polite—even as it was clear he couldn’t stand Lore, for whatever reason.

  He had no idea who Miles was, and he sure as hell had no idea who Lore had become.

  “I enjoy this mortal,” Athena said from beside Miles. “He stays.”

  Lore glanced to Van’s prosthetic hand, his rigid posture as he kept it close to his stomach.

  “What will you tell his family when you bring his body back to them?” he asked her.

  “Geez,” Miles said. “I’m standing right here.”

  “If you’re going to insult my friend, you can leave,” Lore said. Her gaze shifted to Miles, to see how he had taken Van’s words. Rather than fear,

  she saw open defiance—the kind previously only reserved for witnessing strangers stealing cabs from other people and the price of kimchi at the bodega.

  Athena’s long, cold stare finally lifted from Van. “Tell me how you are certain Hermes and the imposter Poseidon are dead.”

  Van drew in a breath. “I captured the footage on— I saw it with my own eyes. The new Ares, Wrath, killed Hermes in the park and left his body there. Some of his hunters—the Kadmides—took Tidebringer with them when they left the park. My sources in the House of Theseus confirmed she was later killed by Wrath at their current compound.”

  The goddess was as rigid and straight as the weapon in her hand. “And you believe these . . . sources?”

  “Yes,” Van said simply. “Because they know what I would do to them if they lied.”

  “Your sister is still alive,” Lore added. “That, I witnessed firsthand. She attacked Castor in one of the Achillides’ compounds.”

  Athena’s nostrils flared. “As is her right. She will not stop until the imposter is dead.”

  “Fantastic,” Lore said grimly.

  “His presence ensures my sister will find us sooner than I foresaw,” Athena said, nodding toward Castor. “Nothing is beyond her arrow’s tip.”

  “Are you afraid of her?” Lore asked. As much as she’d wanted to bait the goddess, there was a part of her that truly wondered if a being like her was capable of fear. To be afraid was to accept you were not infallible.

  “Fear is a foreign land I shall never visit and a language that will never cross my tongue,” Athena said. “Where were the descendants of godlike Achilles to protect you?”

  Castor’s gaze narrowed. “Concerned with other matters.”

  “And yet you are here, alone, far from their protection,” Athena said. She had
the full picture in mere seconds.

  Castor advanced, one fist rising, but Lore held him back again. “The compound was attacked by the Kadmides. Wrath tried to recruit the Achillides by sending Castor a warning. The descendants of Theseus have already aligned with the Kadmides and serve him.”

  “Then they dishonor their ancestor,” Athena said, her lip curling in obvious disgust. “How many Achillides remain living and free of Wrath’s control?”

  Both Lore and Castor turned toward Van expectantly.

  “The number is irrelevant,” he said carefully, avoiding Castor’s gaze.

  That bad, huh? Lore thought.

  “How many do we have left?” Castor’s words rolled through the otherwise silent living room like a thundercloud, darkening it.

  The weight of the word seemed unbearable on Van’s tongue. It fell into the heavy silence like a bronze shield. “Twenty-seven.”

  Lore watched Castor process that number. The tendons in his neck bulged as he turned away and braced his hands on the back of one of the winged armchairs.

  “How many did you begin this Agon with?” Athena pressed, not bothering to hide her pleasure.

  “There are three hundred and seventy-eight hunters from the House of Achilles in the city this cycle,” Van said, his voice remote. “Nearly a hundred were killed at Thetis House as the Kadmides overran it. The traitors join nearly five hundred Kadmides and the entire House of Theseus, which at last count was four hundred and thirty.”

  “I need to go heal the survivors,” Castor said, his voice strained.

  “No, you need to stay here,” Van told him. “I brought them supplies. They have at least one healer.”

  “Van—” Castor started.

  “I know,” Van said. “I know you want to help, but you can’t. Not right now. Wrath is out to kill all the other gods and combine the bloodlines into one force under him. He’s not going to stop hunting you until he himself is killed, so that has to be our priority. If you die, the remaining Achillides are at his mercy. Tell me you understand that.”

  Castor’s shoulders slumped. “I do.”

  At the mention of the defecting Achillides, derision turned Athena’s perfect features monstrous. “My, how the flock flees to the shelter of a better protector.”