He released his hold on her, and Lore scrambled off him, dropping to her knees, panting. The screwdriver fell to the carpet. The smell of singed wool quickly filled the room. Lore had enough sense to kick it toward the tile in the bathroom.

The silence that followed was almost as painful as the heat had been. For a long time, Castor did nothing but stare at her as she leaned forward over her knees, trying to gulp more air into her lungs. Her blood was still drumming in her veins.

Chiron trotted over to her on stiff limbs, and for a moment she did nothing but press her face into the fur of his neck. The weaker part of her wanted to disappear into it.

Finally, Lore forced herself to turn around.

“Surprise?” she said, because Lore had never met a situation she couldn’t make even more painfully awkward.

“I could have . . . I could have killed you,” Castor said hoarsely. “I thought . . . I was confused, and the assassin—”

No. He would have killed her. Her arms were throbbing with the effort it had taken to hold the screwdriver back.

“I seem to remember being the one on top, big guy,” she said.

He closed his eyes, releasing a long breath. Castor rubbed at his forehead, which reminded Lore of how much her own hurt.

“Should have known it was you from that first hit,” he said. “Only you would immediately go for the head. Do I want to know where you got that mask?”

Chiron licked Lore’s chin, comforting her.

“Yeah, yeah,” Castor said, shooting the dog a dark look. “Give the dagger a little twist, why don’t you?”

Lore stroked the dog’s head in silent thanks, then pointed back to the bed. He lumbered off, giving Castor a wide berth.

“Not that I didn’t enjoy almost being impaled by a screwdriver,” Castor said. “After your reaction at the fight, I didn’t think I’d ever see you again . . . but you came.”

“Actually, I was escaping before you rudely interrupted me,” Lore said. “And, for the record, I had no idea this was your room.”

The dog probably should have been a strong hint, but never mind that.

“If you didn’t come to help me,” Castor said slowly, “then what are you doing here?”

“I think I did just help you. Should we move on to the fact you just stood there while your would-be assassin fired at you?” Lore jerked a thumb back toward Philip. “I hope I don’t need to tell you who it is.”

He sucked in a sharp breath between his teeth, eyeing the man’s crumpled form. “I didn’t . . .”

“You didn’t what?” Lore prompted, feeling the first licks of anger on her heart. “Stand there and let him try to kill you?”

Castor looked away. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Well, I definitely won’t if you don’t explain it,” Lore said. When he still didn’t look at her, she added, “What’s going on? Don’t tell me you just wanted to see if he would actually go through with it. We both know the kind of person he is, and you weren’t exactly building bridges with that act you put on downstairs.”

“How much did you see?”

“I saw enough,” Lore said, crawling toward him. “Even when you were . . . Even when you were at your sickest you kept fighting.”

That hadn’t been the real Castor downstairs, with all his bravado. This was Castor.

“Did . . .” she began. “Did you want him to do it?”

His hesitance was answer enough.

“No,” he insisted. “It was just a mistake—I wasn’t being careful.”

Lore shook her head. “You’re always careful.”

He rubbed at the knee he’d hit earlier. “Not lately. It feels like . . .”

She waited for him to finish.

“Like I’m in a body that doesn’t belong to me,” he said, finally. “I haven’t had to move . . . or feel . . . or . . .” Castor drew in another breath. “I just wasn’t sure what to do, or how to avoid killing him.”

“Would that really have been so bad?” Lore asked.

“During this week, when the Achillides need leadership?” he pushed back. “Without any proof of him attacking me first? There are no cameras in here. I already checked.”

“Aren’t you their leader?” Lore asked, plainly. “Don’t they serve you, even over the archon?”

“They never wanted me,” he said. “Not as a child, and certainly not now. Maybe I did think, just for a minute, they would be better off if Philip were to ascend. That he would—”

Lore flinched at the rawness of Castor’s words, but he didn’t finish his thought.

“That he would what? Become even more insufferable? Abuse even more power?” Lore pressed.

“He’d at least be able to control it,” Castor said. “He wouldn’t . . . They would believe in him.”

“In no world is it better for you to die and for Philip Achilleos to become a god. Tell me you understand that. That you believe you deserve to live.”

It didn’t make sense to her—why would Castor have killed Apollo, if not for his power?

The thought came to her suddenly. To heal himself. To be born again in a new, healthy body.

He’d fought an aggressive form of leukemia from the time he was four years old, pushing through chemotherapy, radiation, and stem-cell transplants throughout the years. It had returned with a vengeance just before the start of the last Agon, and everyone, including Castor himself, had believed he’d die from it.

Everyone but Lore.

“Please stop looking at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you’re afraid.”

“I’m not afraid,” she said. “I’m worried. I’m trying to understand what’s happening and how this”—she gestured to him, all of him—“happened.”

Until now, Lore had never thought about how overwhelming it might be to suddenly bear the brunt of your bloodline’s needs, or to lose the person you’d once been. Maybe that explained the heaviness she saw in him now, and the reluctance to accept what he was. But there was something else, too—something she couldn’t put a finger on.

“What a coincidence. I’m also confused,” Castor said, dodging the opening she’d given him to explain. “How did you get in the building to begin with? They locked it down and posted men everywhere. I checked. Don’t tell me you turned yourself into a spider.”

She made a face. “I got into the building the way I always used to.”

“No, you didn’t,” he said, staring at her under his fringe of dark hair. “There were hunters all along the fire escape. You couldn’t have used it.”

“Good thing I didn’t use the fire escape, then,” Lore said.

“You didn’t. . . .” He sat up straighter. “You told me you used to come up the fire escape!”

Oh, Lore thought. Right.

She had told him that—just like she’d told him that the Furies preferred the taste of tender boy flesh and that hunter initiation involved drinking satyr piss and running naked beneath the moon.

Not for the first time, Lore realized she’d been kind of an asshole as a child. This, however, had been the one possible exception.