“You missed,” Lore said hoarsely.

“No,” he said. “I didn’t.”

Castor’s jaw tightened again as he turned to look down at her.

“Are you all right?” he asked, running a soft touch along the outer edge of her eye. She pulled back from him.

“Why didn’t you just do that before?” Lore said, feeling like she was gasping for every word.

He looked at her as if the answer was obvious. “Because Chiron was in the way.”

The dog whined from beside the bedroom’s door, scratching and digging at it to get out.

“Artemis will be back,” Lore said. “Generally speaking, whenever carrion birds enter the conversation it usually implies a level of certainty about the slaughter.”

“Don’t worry about me, Lore,” he said with a sad smile. “I’m not some stag she can run to ground.” Castor gestured to the missing wall. “And at least I’ll see her coming?”

“One, not funny.” Lore dragged a hand back through the snarled mess of her hair. “Two, that’s not what I meant.”

The door rattled as someone pounded against it from the other side. Lore stepped in front of Castor as the locks scraped, ignoring an agonized muscle pull in her lower back, and the warning trilling in her mind.

What are you doing? she thought, furious at herself. You can still get out if you go through the skylight.

Athena needed her, and Lore needed Athena to stay alive. She had to find her a doctor, or some kind of off-the-books health center to treat whatever internal injuries she still had—and soon, if they wanted to catch Wrath as he emerged from hiding to strike at Castor and the other new gods.

Cas . . . Lore stole a glance. Uncertainty clawed at her. She didn’t like the thought of leaving him, but what else could she do? Try to reason with Athena, to show her the logic of accepting help from a bitterly hated enemy? Lore would have a better chance of soothing Cerberus.

The room’s metal blast door lifted, allowing the wooden one to open and slam against the smoldering plaster of the nearby wall. Van hovered in the doorway, his dark skin ashen and his mouth tight with worry.

“Castor?” he called into the drifting clouds of smoke between them. Chiron pushed past his legs, finally escaping the rubble of the room. “Where are you?”

“Here,” the new god answered.

Van whirled toward them, dagger in hand.

Castor held out an arm in front of her. “It’s all right, Van. It’s just Lore.”

“Lore,” Van repeated, taking in a small breath.

Lore saw the growing accusation in his eyes and bristled with a familiar annoyance.

“This is not my fault,” she insisted. Then she added silently, For once.

Van lowered the weapon. “How did you get in here?”

“Here’s a better question,” Lore shot back. “How the hell did Artemis? Why wasn’t the skylight bricked over?”

“Artemis?” Van looked between them, the stray arrows, the upturned furniture, and the hole in the wall. His gaze landed on the hidden door, and Philip’s body sprawled nearby. “Something tells me he didn’t die valiantly defending you from her attack . . . ?”

“No, he did not,” Lore said. “Did no one even think to check for hidden entrances—?”

Van held up his hand, stopping her. “While I’d love to stand around and argue, there are at least two hundred Kadmides heading this way, and half of our hunters are out searching for our dead. Castor, you need to leave. Now.”

Lore’s pulse jumped, but her feet still wouldn’t move.

Castor set his jaw. A shadow passed over his face, and Lore could only guess that Philip’s words were playing through his mind again. You will fail them, and they will all die cursing you.

He might hate the Achillides, he might hate the Agon, but he wouldn’t be Castor if he left knowing that death was coming for them and he could prevent it.

“You don’t have anything to prove to them,” she tried.

“I’m not going to leave,” Castor said. “It doesn’t matter what I think of them, or what they think of me. I do have a responsibility to them.”

“Are you a complete idiot,” Lore asked seriously, “or has the smoke gone to your head?”

“Charming as always, Melora,” Van said. “Dare I ask what you’re even doing here? You wouldn’t help him before.”

“I came for the food,” Lore said. “You?”

But even then, her mind was screaming at her to go.

You need to leave before he and his serpents get here, she thought, a cold fear slipping through her. You have to get back to Athena. You have to tell her about Hermes and Artemis and Tidebringer and Wrath. . . .

Van turned a cool, assessing look on her now. Lore fought the urge to duck away from that close scrutiny or demand to know whatever it was he was looking for. That look, and that stillness, even as a kid, had always made her feel loud, dirty, and simple.

“She came to find out if we knew anything about another version of the origin poem, one that might explain how to win the Agon,” Castor told him. “Someone warned her that’s what Wrath is looking for.”

“Who told you that?” Van asked.

“That’s my business,” Lore said.

“You haven’t heard anything about it?” Castor pressed him. Lore felt a strange sort of guilt that, even now, he was still trying to help her, to put her needs first, the way he always had.

Van shook his head. “No . . . if—and I mean if—it exists, it could be something the Odysseides know about. They have the most in-depth archives of all the families. I’ll talk to my source there, but you need to go, Cas. Immediately.”

Shit, Lore thought. She should have thought of the Odysseides’ archive—then again, she generally made a point to avoid thinking about the House of Odysseus at all.

“I have a duty to help this bloodline,” Castor insisted. “I still have some sense of honor, apparently.”

“Your honor would be adorable if it weren’t so stupid,” Lore told him. “Is self-preservation the first thing that gets stripped from you when you lose your humanity, or is it common sense? This city hasn’t changed that much since you left it. You know it better than most of the hunters out there. The safer thing is to go into hiding and wait out the next five nights, or see if you can get to one of the outer boroughs. It’s not ideal, but at least you wouldn’t have to constantly defend yourself on two fronts. The absolute last thing you need to do is stay here and die for people who—”

“Exactly,” Van said coming to stand beside her. “Which is why you’re going with Melora.”

It took Lore a moment to process this. “Wait—what? No. He can’t come with me.”

“I’m not going,” Castor said.

“It has to be you,” Van insisted, ignoring him.

Lore was disgusted. “Still sitting out whatever fight you can, I see.”

“You know that’s not true,” Castor told her sharply.

Lore grew heated, and forced herself to take a breath. It had always been this way—even as kids, Castor would try to pull her back from any edge, regardless of whether or not it had something to do with Van. The difference was, now she was more than capable of deciding when to jump. “If I wanted a moral compass, I would have stopped at a store on the way here.”