“Who are you?” he demanded.

Miles straightened as Van’s gaze fell on him, his ears rimmed with pink. “Hi—I’m Miles. I mean, I’m Lore’s roommate. And friend.”

“I’m Castor,” the new god said. “This is Evander . . . Van.”

Van’s streamlined leather backpack looked like a beetle’s shell. He adjusted its straps, giving Lore a sideways look. “What the hell are you thinking, bringing an Unblooded into this?”

Miles recoiled at the edge of cold disapproval in Van’s words.

Lore’s anger, though, was still too close to the surface. “He was with me when I found her. In case you’ve lost your grip on it, let me remind you—the real world doesn’t work like the bloodlines. You get a choice on how to live your life when you’re on the outside.”

“I may be new to all of this, but I’m not useless,” Miles said. “How about you get to know me for longer than ten seconds?”

“I don’t need more than ten seconds,” Van said.

Lore’s hands curled into fists at her side. She’d already struggled with the thought of Miles being drawn into the Agon, but the condescension laced through those words—as if she’d intentionally endangered him, as if Miles were nothing—infuriated her.

“Van,” Castor said, his tone chiding.

Evander Achilleos had grown up in an elegant home in London, and had been raised by parents who spoke in cut-glass accents and ate their meals on gold-trimmed china, but you would never have known it in that moment. The handful of times his parents had brought him to New York on business trips and he’d trained at Thetis House or joined Lore and Castor in Central Park, he’d at least been polite—even as it was clear he couldn’t stand Lore, for whatever reason.

He had no idea who Miles was, and he sure as hell had no idea who Lore had become.

“I enjoy this mortal,” Athena said from beside Miles. “He stays.”

Lore glanced to Van’s prosthetic hand, his rigid posture as he kept it close to his stomach.

“What will you tell his family when you bring his body back to them?” he asked her.

“Geez,” Miles said. “I’m standing right here.”

“If you’re going to insult my friend, you can leave,” Lore said. Her gaze shifted to Miles, to see how he had taken Van’s words. Rather than fear,

she saw open defiance—the kind previously only reserved for witnessing strangers stealing cabs from other people and the price of kimchi at the bodega.

Athena’s long, cold stare finally lifted from Van. “Tell me how you are certain Hermes and the imposter Poseidon are dead.”

Van drew in a breath. “I captured the footage on— I saw it with my own eyes. The new Ares, Wrath, killed Hermes in the park and left his body there. Some of his hunters—the Kadmides—took Tidebringer with them when they left the park. My sources in the House of Theseus confirmed she was later killed by Wrath at their current compound.”

The goddess was as rigid and straight as the weapon in her hand. “And you believe these . . . sources?”

“Yes,” Van said simply. “Because they know what I would do to them if they lied.”

“Your sister is still alive,” Lore added. “That, I witnessed firsthand. She attacked Castor in one of the Achillides’ compounds.”

Athena’s nostrils flared. “As is her right. She will not stop until the imposter is dead.”

“Fantastic,” Lore said grimly.

“His presence ensures my sister will find us sooner than I foresaw,” Athena said, nodding toward Castor. “Nothing is beyond her arrow’s tip.”

“Are you afraid of her?” Lore asked. As much as she’d wanted to bait the goddess, there was a part of her that truly wondered if a being like her was capable of fear. To be afraid was to accept you were not infallible.

“Fear is a foreign land I shall never visit and a language that will never cross my tongue,” Athena said. “Where were the descendants of godlike Achilles to protect you?”

Castor’s gaze narrowed. “Concerned with other matters.”

“And yet you are here, alone, far from their protection,” Athena said. She had the full picture in mere seconds.

Castor advanced, one fist rising, but Lore held him back again. “The compound was attacked by the Kadmides. Wrath tried to recruit the Achillides by sending Castor a warning. The descendants of Theseus have already aligned with the Kadmides and serve him.”

“Then they dishonor their ancestor,” Athena said, her lip curling in obvious disgust. “How many Achillides remain living and free of Wrath’s control?”

Both Lore and Castor turned toward Van expectantly.

“The number is irrelevant,” he said carefully, avoiding Castor’s gaze.

That bad, huh? Lore thought.

“How many do we have left?” Castor’s words rolled through the otherwise silent living room like a thundercloud, darkening it.

The weight of the word seemed unbearable on Van’s tongue. It fell into the heavy silence like a bronze shield. “Twenty-seven.”

Lore watched Castor process that number. The tendons in his neck bulged as he turned away and braced his hands on the back of one of the winged armchairs.

“How many did you begin this Agon with?” Athena pressed, not bothering to hide her pleasure.

“There are three hundred and seventy-eight hunters from the House of Achilles in the city this cycle,” Van said, his voice remote. “Nearly a hundred were killed at Thetis House as the Kadmides overran it. The traitors join nearly five hundred Kadmides and the entire House of Theseus, which at last count was four hundred and thirty.”

“I need to go heal the survivors,” Castor said, his voice strained.

“No, you need to stay here,” Van told him. “I brought them supplies. They have at least one healer.”

“Van—” Castor started.

“I know,” Van said. “I know you want to help, but you can’t. Not right now. Wrath is out to kill all the other gods and combine the bloodlines into one force under him. He’s not going to stop hunting you until he himself is killed, so that has to be our priority. If you die, the remaining Achillides are at his mercy. Tell me you understand that.”

Castor’s shoulders slumped. “I do.”

At the mention of the defecting Achillides, derision turned Athena’s perfect features monstrous. “My, how the flock flees to the shelter of a better protector.”

Castor spun around, his expression wild with pain and anger. “You would know something about that, wouldn’t you?”

Athena rose to her full height, meeting him eye-to-eye. Lore bit back a noise of frustration.

“You two are going to have plenty of time for blood and thunder and staring contests when you’re both happily immortal again,” Lore said. She turned to Athena. “Those were hunters that would have followed Castor and helped us. Now we’re going to have to deal with a bigger circle of protection around Wrath and more hunters on the street searching for you.”

“I will never cower before an imposter’s blade, nor will I retreat from a binding oath. I tell you now, as I have before, the Ares pretender will die by my hand. I do not require any assistance.”