He shook himself out of his trance, taking her hand again. “What have I told you about your knife?”

“I can only use it at Thetis House or home,” she dutifully repeated. Which was stupid. All hunters needed their weapons on them at all times, even between the Agons. But the words still didn’t make him happy.

He glanced around at the people walking by them, oblivious or checking their phones. Then he switched to the ancient tongue. “Because the Unblooded will not understand. They will take you away if they catch you with a weapon like that.”

“I can defend myself!” The words burst out of her. “I am the best in my class. Instructor calls me the Spartan—”

“Not even the Spartans were Spartan, Melora,” her father said.

Lore pulled back, out of his reach. She hugged the parcel to her. Her thoughts became a confusing tangle. “What do you mean?”

He knelt down to look her directly in the eye. “It’s not always the truth that survives, but the stories we wish to believe. The legends lie. They smooth over imperfections to tell a good tale, or to instruct us how we should behave, or to assign glory to victors and shame those who falter. Perhaps there were some in Sparta who embodied those myths. Perhaps. But how we are remembered is less important than what we do now.”

Lore’s heart began to beat very fast. She clutched the parcel hard enough to rumple its brown paper. “But our legends are true. Our ancestors, the gods—”

“If there were once heroes, they are all gone now,” her father said, rising. “Only the monsters remain. Your courage has always been great, chrysaphenia mou. For some monsters, that will be enough to scare them off—but there will be others, bigger beasts who will delight in the chase. Do you understand?”

Lore said nothing. Her anger growled in her chest, bold and gnawing. She could take care of anyone—or anything—that tried to strike at her. Monsters had fangs, but that was why lionesses were given claws.

“Do you understand?” he repeated, sharper this time.

“Yes, Papa,” she said sullenly.

“Castor’s father is an acquaintance of mine,” he said. “I’ll speak to him about arranging times for you to see him outside your lessons and ask Philip Achilleos for permission, if I must. But you—you must promise me.”

“I promise,” she said, then silently added, To be more careful than I was before.

They started walking again, rejoining the flow of people making their way across town. Lore stayed close to her father’s side, trying to avoid being jostled by roving school groups as they crossed Fifth Avenue. Lore didn’t spare them another look. They weren’t like her.

“Your sister will join you at Thetis House soon. Would you like that?”

Lore shrugged. She couldn’t imagine Pia, with her wide eyes and her little fingers always stained with paint, taking the hits from her classmates’ training staffs. The thought made Lore’s chest growl again, though she wasn’t sure why.

“What shall we do for her birthday?” he asked, switching back into English.

Lore shrugged again. She already knew what she would get her sister as a gift—a promise to make their bed and braid her hair every day until summer was swept away by autumn winds.

“A movie?” she ventured. Her father didn’t like them much, but maybe this once . . .

“A picnic?” he suggested instead.

“A trip to Central Park Zoo?” she offered.

On and on, they traded ideas, until they ran out of things they had done and had to invent things that they couldn’t ever do.

“A trip to the moon?” Lore said.

“A dance with winged horses?”

Lore shifted the parcel in her hands. It wasn’t heavy, but the clinking inside made her wonder.

“A walk to wherever we’re going?” she suggested innocently.

One corner of her father’s mouth twitched, but evened out again as he pursed his lips.

“No, chrysaphenia mou,” he said, looking ahead. “We won’t take her there. It is a place of monsters.”

Lore didn’t recognize the restaurant. She didn’t even think it was open. The shades were drawn and the door was locked. She glanced over to the name stenciled onto the larger of the two windows. The Phoenician.

She gasped.

“Say nothing,” her father told her in a low voice, taking the parcel out of her hands. “Do you remember what I taught you about the way guests have to behave? The Kadmides have invited us as a gesture of goodwill and peace.”

Lore recoiled. “Not them, Papa—they’re the ones who killed—”

“Melora,” he interrupted sharply. “Do you really think I’ve forgotten? We are alone in this world now, the five of us. Your mother’s people will not ally with us for the next Agon, and neither will the Achillides or the Theseides. They would all gladly watch the last of Perseus’s line leave the Agon. We need allies.”

She drew in a long breath through her nose, holding it to keep from saying anything.

“Aristos Kadmou, archon of this bloodline, wrote to me himself and asked that I come with my eldest daughter,” he said. “I could not refuse without it being perceived as an insult. They are not known for their graciousness when it comes to being slighted.”

The air exploded out of her. “But, Papa—”

“We must release the past if we are to ever find a future,” he told her. “Don’t be afraid. I am with you, and we are strangers here. Zeus Xenios will protect us.”

Like he protected the rest of our bloodline? Lore was surprised at her mean thought. Of course he would protect them. They were Zeus’s chosen hunters.

Lore knew her family wasn’t like the other bloodlines. But it was one thing to train with the house of mighty Achilles and another to go to the Perseides’ worst enemy for weapons and armor and information. She hated that it had to be this way. Perseus was a greater hero than Kadmos ever was.

Her father raised his hand and knocked.

A voice called back through the door in the ancient tongue. “Who comes here?”

“Demos, son of Demosthenes, and his daughter, Melora, of the Perseides,” he replied. “At the request of the archon of the Kadmides.”

The door’s lock slid open. Lore clutched the bottom of her father’s old leather jacket, then forced herself to step away and straighten. She wasn’t a little girl anymore. She didn’t hide behind anyone.

The woman who opened the door was well into her years of white hair and worn skin. She locked it behind them.

The restaurant was dark, with only muted sunlight seeping through the screens. It was smaller than she’d expected, and, to make room, all of its tables and chairs had been pushed to the far sides and stacked. The gathered Kadmides moved, creating a narrow aisle between them. They hissed and smirked as Lore and her father passed by them.

Lore stared back defiantly. A hunter never showed another hunter their fear. Not if they wanted respect.

Familiar smells coated the air—oregano and garlic, roasted meat, oiled leather, bodies. Sitting near the back of the restaurant, elevated above the others on a small stage, was a middle-aged man, his dark hair shot through with silver.