Lore

by Alexandra Bracken

  The Reveler turned and limped up the steps. Lore looked back toward the others, taking in their alarm and confusion.

  “We will keep our distance,” Athena said. “But will not be far.”

  Lore trailed behind the new god. The others followed, hanging back as they reached the top of the steps.

  The new god stopped once he reached the fountain in the center of the indoor courtyard, forcing Lore to close the distance between them herself. He examined the bodies, his expression odd.

  Lore heard the desperation in her own voice as she asked, “What is this about?”

  “My one job for Wrath was to find you,” he said without preamble. “He thinks you have the aegis, and he’s going to do just about anything to get it back.”

  The black at the edge of her sight grew, and a prickle of numbness found her fingertips. It wasn’t anything she didn’t already expect, but the seed of fear her conversation with Iro had planted finally bloomed.

  “Why?” Lore managed to say. “The Kadmides have it—”

  “There’s no point in lying to me.” The new god turned toward her, and she couldn’t tell if it was revulsion or pity that crossed his face. “You humiliated him. His entire bloodline knows the truth, even if they won’t reveal it to the others. Aristos Kadmou, bested by a young girl. But it creates a problem for you, doesn’t it?”

  Lore shook her head, unable to speak.

  “I did find you, you know,” the Reveler said. “It was a hell of a thing—a total fluke in the end because I went looking for him, and he’d found you first.”

  “Who are you talking about?” Lore breathed. “Who found me?”

  “Hermes,” the Reveler said. “You know where he was those years he disappeared—you know, because he was with you.”

  LORE TOOK A STEP Back. “No. I never saw him. I didn’t. . . .”

  “All of those years, he wasn’t making plans for his own survival. He was protecting you,” the Reveler said. “An idiotic move.”

  The Reveler looked at the fountain, the bloodied water.

  “He picked such a pathetic form, but it worked on you, didn’t it? That frail old man. Made you feel sorry for him. Made you want to help him.”

  “I . . .” Lore said. “No, he . . . no . . .”

  “Did you really think some stranger would go to such great lengths to pay you back? Give you a fecking new home and sweet little life?” His tone turned mocking. “He protected that house, and you. No one could come inside unless they were invited. Took me days to work it out once I found that brownstone. That there was something—someone—there I couldn’t see. He used his power to turn you invisible to all us gods. Clever Hermes. You’re just a lucky little shit that no one else figured it out.”

  “That’s impossible,” Lore said, struggling to keep her voice steady. But Castor’s words had already risen again in her memory. I tried to find you for years, but it was like you vanished. There was no trace of you left.

  “Is it?” the Reveler cooed back. “Gods can fecking shroud themselves in mist and disappear from the sight of mortals and other celestials. He gave something to you, didn’t he? Something you wore all the time that used his power to invoke the averting gods. ’Course, he would have enchanted it to make you feel inclined to keep it on, no matter what. He would have made your stupid little brain think it was your idea all along. That you loved it.”

  Lore’s hand drifted up to her bare throat. The feather necklace.

  Her head began to pound, hammering in time with her heartbeat.

  “Its protection lasted until his death,” the Reveler continued. “That’s the only reason any of us, including your two godly friends, can see you now.”

  Lore curled her hands into fists to keep them from trembling. She shook her head, but her mind was already beginning to make the connections, to find the truth in his words. It couldn’t have been a coincidence that the necklace’s clasp had broken the night of Hermes’s death. . . .

  “Even after I found the house, Hermes still wouldn’t see me,” the Reveler said. “Hermes wouldn’t say a word to me, no matter how many times I came, no matter how hard I tried to convince him to come with me and serve Wrath. No matter how many times I swore on the River Styx I’d never betray him or his secret.” He whirled on her. “And all because of you—a little piece of shit who should have been snuffed out with her family.”

  The Reveler drew up his hand, as if to grip her neck again, but left it hovering in the air.

  With each heartbeat, the Frick began to disappear. Colors and light swirled around her, painting the image of her street, of the town house. Lore’s head felt as heavy as if she’d drunk an entire bottle of wine.

  “You . . .” Her lips had lost all feeling. “You’re— That’s not right—Gil—”

  She saw Gil in the living room, switching on his creaky record player, pretending the broom was his dance partner as music filled the air. But as Lore came closer, she saw that the old man’s feet were hovering over the floor.

  “Gil?” The Reveler let out a wicked laugh. “Is that what he called himself?”

  The image of Gil transformed before her. He grew taller, his arms and legs muscled, the skin soft with youth. A faint glow rose around him.

  “I saw his disguise,” the Reveler said, sounding far away. “No wonder you trusted him. It must have felt like a fecking fairy tale.”

  Lore felt herself start to double over as the tide of memories washed through her, all rinsed of their happy lies.

  “No,” she said. “You’re lying—”

  But . . .

  What were the chances that Gil had lain in the street for hours that night and no one else had heard the attack or his cries for help? That he would have been violently mugged in a small, peaceful village? Even the doctor had been shocked that an attack had happened there.

  Gil had never pressed Lore about her own injuries, then or years later. He never questioned her motives. He had welcomed her into his home. He had left her everything when he’d died. . . .

  When he’d died, just months before the start of the Agon.

  Hermes would have known that he—that Gil—would vanish at the start of the week, brought to wherever the Agon would be held that cycle. That there was a chance he would die during the hunt, leaving Lore to wonder what happened to Gil.

  Maybe the “death” of his disguise was a kindness, but it only made Lore angrier. He should have told her the truth. He should have revealed himself.

  Lore thought she heard Castor call to her, but she couldn’t bring herself to turn around. Her body wouldn’t move.

  It was a lie.

  But so was this. The new Dionysus dealt in madness. In illusions.

  “Stop it,” Lore said, clutching her head. “I don’t want to see this!”

  The town house burned to black around her and the Frick returned, dull and flat compared to the vividness of the hallucination.

  “Tell me,” the Reveler began. “How much green velvet is in that town house? He always had the worst taste.”

  Lore pressed a hand to her mouth.

  “All I wanted to tell him was why Wrath wanted the aegis, but he must have already known, otherwise why the hell would he bother to protect you?” the Reveler said. “I thought he might have brought the shield here—not for me to give to Wrath, but to destroy it. I don’t understand why the idiot didn’t just destroy it and be done with it and you!”

  “Because I don’t have it,” Lore told him again. “None of this makes sense!”

  “No, you little shit,” he snarled quietly. “What makes no sense is why you’ve—”

  A spray of blood slapped across Lore’s face as the Reveler lurched forward, falling into the fountain. The stone darkened as it drank the fresh gore. Lore watched, stunned, as the arrow that had passed through the new god’s throat rose to the surface of the water.

  A heavy body fell over Lore’s, knocking her to the ground as glass from the roof rained down over the
m. Castor was breathing heavily, each release of air stirring the loose strands of hair on her face. His hands felt her head, her neck, her chest for a wound.

  “I’m okay—Cas, I’m—”

  Another arrow ripped through the air, embedding in the tile beside her head.

  Castor dragged them back through the columns surrounding the fountain, until they were out of the line of sight of whoever was firing through the domed roof. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Miles run for the museum’s entrance.

  “Is it Artemis?” Lore gasped out, craning her neck up.

  “Lionesses!” Athena shouted, flinging one of her knives from where she had taken shelter behind a column. The hunter shifted, avoiding the blade—but not the dory Athena threw. Her body fell into the museum, her serpent’s mask cracking as she struck the marble.

  Lore ignored the grip Castor had on her shoulder and leaned forward, just enough to see where one of the dome’s larger panes had shattered. Two more figures in black emerged—one pointing to Athena. The other raised her bow again, this time toward Castor.

  Castor threw up a blast of energy, crumbling the roof beneath the hunters’ feet. The two lionesses fell, trained too well to scream, even as their bones broke over the debris.

  A look of crushing guilt crossed his face, and he made as if to rush toward them. Lore pulled him back.

  “I need to heal them,” he said, yanking his arm free.

  “They don’t deserve that,” Lore said, a terrible rage blooming in the words. “Let them die.”

  Castor stared at her, and she resented his shock. What did he expect?

  “Guys,” Miles shouted. “We need to go!”

  With one last look at her, Castor extracted himself from her grip and shot across the courtyard toward the two lionesses. Lore would have gone after him if not for the low moan of agony that reached her first.

  She spun around to find the Reveler’s feet struggling for purchase against the slick tile as he tried in vain to pull himself out of the fountain.

  They weren’t trying to kill him. The thought electrified her. These were lionesses. They needed to incapacitate him, but keep him alive long enough for Wrath to finish him off.

  Lore rushed toward him, calling out, “Castor!”

  The new god turned at the sound of his name, releasing his hold on one of the lionesses. The glow around her faded.

  “Fool!” Athena shouted to Lore. “Stop!”

  “He’s alive!” Lore said, gripping the Reveler by the shoulders and yanking him back onto the ground.

  The Reveler’s eyes were wild as his hand flopped against his blood-soaked skin, trying to press against the wound in his throat. Somehow, the arrow had missed the carotid artery. Lore covered his hand with her own, pressing harder to try to stanch the flow.

  “Try to relax,” Lore told him.

  He shook his head, wild with pain. “It . . . must be . . . given . . . must give . . . it . . .”

  “What are you trying to say?” Lore asked.

  Athena pried Lore’s hand away and replaced it with her own. The new god’s skin had turned gray and clammy. All Lore now saw in his face was fear. Athena stared down at the Reveler, her expression remote.

  “Cas!” Lore called again. The new god was within feet of them, but seemed to be moving in slow motion. She focused on the Reveler again, saying, “Hold on—just—”

  A crack echoed through the stone columns as Athena clenched her hand and snapped his neck.

  “Why did you do that?” Lore asked, choking on her shock.

  The goddess rose, wiping her bloodied hand against the Reveler’s sky-blue tunic. “He was beyond saving. Would you have the killer gain his power? Would you have taken it yourself?”

  No, she wouldn’t have.

  “I could have saved him!” Castor said, furious.

  “That fool was never going to help us,” Athena said. “Better him dead by my merciful hand than by his enemy’s.”

  “He didn’t have to die at all!”

  Footsteps pounded on the roof overhead. Lore spun, tracking them as they raced toward the corner of the building.

  “There’s another one?” Miles asked.

  Lore’s mind blazed with possibility. Maybe the lionesses hadn’t been the ones to fire on the Reveler after all.

  Maybe it had been Wrath himself.

  Lore bolted for the entrance, ignoring Miles’s startled cry as she knocked the baton out from the door handles.

  She burst outside, her feet skidding against the sidewalk. A dark figure scaled down the wall from the roof. He dropped the last five feet of distance, landing hard on the patch of grass nearby.

  It wasn’t Wrath. The hunter turned, his serpent mask gleaming in the moonlight. He scaled up the construction fence and dropped down onto Seventieth Street.

  She followed.

  “Lore!” Castor called. “Wait!”

  She couldn’t. Not anymore.

  The hunter was a shadow against the darkness of early morning as he headed west, crossing Fifth Avenue and jumping the low stone fence that marked the boundary of Central Park.

  Lore’s hands scraped against the wall as she slid over it. The park was closed this late at night, but its streetlamps were still on. If the hunter thought he was going to lose her here, in her park of all places, he was about to be extremely disappointed.

  “That’s right,” Lore murmured, “keep running.”

  She would follow him to the ends of the city, and he would take her to wherever Wrath was hiding.

  Gil . . .

  No, this was good. She would keep her gaze ahead now, and she wouldn’t look back. If she didn’t acknowledge the pain, it would leave her, just like everything else. It would. Her anger would be useful for once. It would keep her going.

  Not lost, she thought. But never free.

  It wasn’t just anger that Lore felt, but humiliation—all this time, she’d believed that she existed outside the reach of the gods, that she was finally in command of her life.

  None of it was real.

  Not the love she’d felt from Gil, not the hope, or even the good days. Lore hadn’t wanted to change a single thing about the town house or move a single object. She’d felt like she owed it to Gil to preserve his memory, but all she’d done was create another shrine for a god.

  He must have laughed at her every single day.

  Building a new life, a better life, Gil had told her, will keep you looking forward, until, one day, you’ll find you’re no longer tempted to keep turning back toward everything you’ve lost.

  Hermes. Hermes had told her that. And for what? To see if she would eventually give him the aegis?

  For the first time in seven years, the thought of the shield didn’t send her body into lockdown the way it usually did. She could almost imagine herself holding it—how the leather strap would feel tight against her arm, the purr of its suppressed power stroking her senses . . .

  She could get it. She could take back what was meant to be hers. If the Agon wouldn’t let her go, she would beat them at their own game and break them before they ever broke her again.

  Lore would send Wrath and all the others a message they couldn’t ignore.

  Where are you going, little snake? she wondered, watching him race through the trees of the empty park. What hole are you slithering back to?

  Lore had her answer soon enough.

  The hunter had stayed away from the park’s established paths, preferring to keep to the grassy hills and weave through playgrounds and statues. Now he slowed as he approached the fence that edged the Mall.

  The broad walkway was lined with park benches and dark elm trees. She hung back, but he had already stopped at the center of the path. Waiting for her.

  The hunter lifted his mask.

  “Come on, Melora,” Belen Kadmou said. “Come out and play.”

  ADRENALINE, HOT AND SWEET, surged through her.

  Belen had all the same markers of arrogance as his
father. The easy, unafraid posture. The smug smile of someone who had never been knocked off a throne. Even as a bastard, Belen had been afforded some measure of respect as Aristos Kadmou’s only child.

  More respect than Lore had ever been given as girl.

  Belen tossed his crossbow aside, but pulled out a long knife from the sheath strapped to his inner arm. Lore gripped her own knife, taking quick stock of him. Lore was tall, but he was just that little bit taller. Fighting with small blades would give him an advantage. He would have the longer reach.

  But she had more fury. Belen was a gift. There would be no better way to send Wrath a message than leaving the young man’s body for him to find in the park.

  Lore stepped out from the shadows. “Don’t mind if I do, you overdramatic asshole.”

  “Is that how you want to greet your old pal after all this time?” he crooned.

  “The last time I saw you, you were sitting at your father’s feet like an obedient puppy,” Lore said, giving him a quick look up and down. “Seems like nothing’s changed.”

  “You’ve always talked too much for a woman,” he said, watching her jump down over the low fence.

  “Ironic, given that this is the first time I’ve actually heard you speak for yourself,” she said. “Did Daddy loosen the leash?”

  “He is my lord and father,” Belen said. “An unfamiliar concept to you, I realize, as you have neither.”

  Lore let the insult go as she began to circle him. “How will your lord and father react to knowing that you didn’t manage to kill any of the three gods who were in that museum?”

  “I wasn’t aiming for the Reveler.” His gaze bored into her. “I was there for you.”

  She tried not to let her shock slip into her expression. “I’m flattered.”

  “He wants it back, Melora,” Belen said. “He won’t stop until he has it again.”

  “I don’t have whatever it is,” Lore told him, drawing closer as she circled him again. “You’re wasting your time.”

  “I told him as much,” Belen said, holding out his knife. “That you would have used it if it were still in your possession, or given it to the gods you’re hiding behind.”