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.

She kicked viciously, trying to hit his kneecaps. Somewhere in the background, she was aware of barking, of the dark blur behind her opponent snapping and lunging.

Lore bashed her forehead against Castor’s, letting the bronze mask do its work. He groaned, blood bursting from a cut across his forehead. Castor staggered back and she tackled him, all broken nails and raw, desperate strength. His weight was impossible—suffocating as it settled over her—but he was still flesh and blood.

She wrapped her legs around his torso and flipped him over so that she was on top. Lore brought the screwdriver to his throat, but Castor gripped the metal and pushed the tip back toward her face. His blood sizzled on the steel as it heated in his hand, turning molten gold. The scalding intensity of it was so near to her eye that it finally broke Lore out of her frenzied haze.

Chiron was all but howling, gripping the new god’s other arm in his mouth. He didn’t seem to feel the fangs or the brute force of the massive dog. Castor’s pupils were dilated, ringed by the gold embers of his power. He was looking at her, but not seeing her, even as he tore her mask off.

“It’s me!” Lore choked out, trying to twist away from the burning blade. “It’s me—it’s Lore!”

The transformation that stole over the new god’s face was like the slow unfurling of a wing. Fury spread to shock, then horror.