“This is my home,” Lore said. “Even if I lose this form, I’ll find a way to come back. I’m determined, and you know what that means.”

“You get a very intense look on your face and punch someone in the kidney?” Miles said.

“Maybe a little of that, too.” Lore let out a true laugh, but saw that he needed more reassurance. “I might need to be gone awhile, but I would never leave you forever. Not if I can help it.”

“Okay, but counterpoint,” Miles said. “I don’t want you to go at all.”

Lore turned her gaze back out onto the street below, watching as the first colors of sunset held her sweet neighborhood in a moment of perfect light. A couple walked with their dog and stroller, the men laughing together as the baby tossed a small star-shaped toy into the street.

He glanced at her again, leaning his temple against the warm glass. “You do seem a little different, but also not. I can’t explain it.”

“Me neither,” Lore said. “I just feel . . . light.”

She draped an arm around Miles’s shoulder. He did the same.

“You know, this city is a lot of bullshit,” Lore said after a while. “But it’s some beautiful bullshit.”

Lore and Miles joined the others on the roof. The sunset had begun in earnest, putting on a spectacular show of rosy gold and violet.

Castor stood to take the plastic bags of snack food Miles carried up. As he saw her, she caught a flash of concern in his eyes that he did his best to disguise.

Iro and Van were sitting on the blanket that they’d stretched over the rough surface. Lore’s heart was full at the sight of them, her joy so bright that she was almost startled by it. The two of them shared a glance, an unspoken nudge to each other to say something.

She suddenly felt shy then—as if what had happened, and what she’d become, was a ghost they all could see, but no one wanted to acknowledge.

Lore really hated feeling shy.

“Man, we really need to put a pool or garden up here,” Lore said, pretending to look around. “What the hell is the point of having rooftop access if you can’t lord it over your neighbors?”

“I’m guessing the point is to not violate city building codes,” Miles said lightly. “So we don’t have to pay an exorbitant fine.”

“Don’t you have an in with the city government?” Lore asked. “I mean, picture it—some nice lights, a few little plants here and there—”

“You have killed every single plant I’ve brought home for you,” Miles said. “And then I went home to Florida for spring break and you killed my plants because you didn’t water them.”

“I was busy,” Lore protested. “They seemed fine.”

“How did we get on this subject?” Castor asked, digging out a small package of pretzels and tossing it to Van.

“How did you know I had a hankering for the mini twists?” Van asked, plucking one from the bag.

“Because we’ve been eating like subway rats for the last two days and you had the cheese puffs for breakfast this morning,” Castor said.

“Subway rats at least get the occasional slice of dropped pizza,” Lore said.

“Can we please stop talking about rats?” Van asked, pained.

Lore and the others circled up around the bags, stretching out across the warm roof as the sun finally dipped beneath the horizon.

As Miles went on about the updates he’d gotten laying out Columbia’s delayed start of the school year, Iro caught Lore’s eye.

Okay? Lore mouthed.

Iro nodded. There wasn’t a bruise or scratch on her that Lore could see, and that didn’t seem possible, given the fight she’d likely had in the hotel. Castor must have healed all of them after caring for Lore.

She leaned back and turned her gaze upward, toward the heavens. Without the city’s usual glow, it was easy to make out the stars.

Castor, Miles, and Van went to the edge of the roof, and the new god pointed out all the same constellations Lore had quietly noted to herself.

Her father had taught them to her and Castor, telling them the myths behind each. Like the heroes of old and so many others, she had believed that the only greater honor than kleos was for the gods to place you among the stars.

Sometimes Lore caught herself searching for her family in those lights. When the heaviness of that grief visited her, when she missed them with the kind of pain that made sleep impossible, she had made up her own constellations for each of them.

Lore pressed a hand to her chest, rubbing it. In time, she knew she would see them again, but not now. She’d outrun death so many times she’d stopped counting, but it wasn’t lost on her that the one being who had destroyed her life had also given her a second one.

Iro came and lay beside her, taking in the dark sky. Lore turned to look at her.

“Is everything all right with your line?” Lore asked. “What happened in the hotel?”

“The Odysseides are wounded, but mending,” Iro said. “We lost only one hunter in the fight. Once the Kadmides discovered the tank of sea fire, and that they had been locked in with us, the fighting stopped and they were willing to show us how to smother the flames. It was all so strange, in a way.”

“The Odysseides were lucky to have you there to lead them,” Lore said.

Iro shook her head. “If only it were that simple. I want them to listen to me, but there’s still a small part of me that feels like . . . I am not meant to lead.”

“You are,” Lore told her.

Iro breathed in deeply. “I don’t know how to convince the elders that we have to find a new role to play in this world, but I’m hoping my mother can help. She’s meeting us at the estate in the Loire Valley. We’ll fight for the soul of the Odysseides together.”

“Good,” Lore said. “That’s good, Iro. I’m not sure if there’s anything I can do to help you, but I’ll try.”

Iro scoffed. “What can’t you do?”

“Beat you in sparring?” Lore offered.

“Do not ever forget that,” Iro said. “No matter how many eternities you see.”

“If I’m lucky enough to have that long,” Lore said quietly.

“Do you . . .” Iro seemed uncertain of how to ask her question. “Do you want this for yourself?”

“I don’t know what I want, or what I really feel. Mostly sad, I think,” Lore said. “Maybe that’s not even the right word. It’s like I’m missing everything, and all of you, and I’m still here. I can’t shake this feeling that having Athena’s power will only create more problems. That, no matter how hard I try, I’ll lose touch with my humanity and find myself in the same destructive patterns the old gods fell into.”

Lore didn’t want ages to feel like moments, or for time to lose its meaning for her. She didn’t want to decide how and when to use her power and know she would inevitably make mistakes.

She didn’t want to be alive after all her friends were gone.

“We don’t know what will happen until the hour comes,” Iro said as the others made their way back over to them. “But until then, we’ll stay here together as long as the night will have us.”