Even in the darkness, Lore could still see the way the Reveler’s top lip curled, baring his teeth.

“And if you’re so sure that Hermes hid something here, in a place that’s meaningful to you,” Miles continued, “it means you were in contact with Hermes before the start of the Agon and knew what he was doing in the years between the Agon. Unless you’re just guessing he left something for you and didn’t abandon you, which is obviously also a possibility.”

“He didn’t abandon me.” The Reveler lunged forward, only to be blocked by

a shove of Castor’s hand. Lore gripped Miles by the arm and drew him back behind her, but she suddenly understood what he was doing—getting answers by testing assumptions, not by asking questions.

Lore clucked her tongue. “So, in the end, Hermes wanted nothing to do with you. He didn’t leave you anything. He probably didn’t even say good-bye.”

The Reveler lurched toward her. “You stupid—!”

Castor shoved him again, this time up against the wall. He pushed his forearm into the god’s exposed throat. “Don’t touch her.”

Athena slashed the dory down between them, breaking Castor’s hold. “Enough.”

But she, too, had figured out Miles and Lore’s game. A frisson of satisfaction worked its way down Lore’s spine as the goddess gave her a small smile.

Hermes had disappeared, not necessarily to hide himself from Wrath, but to hide something—something that the Reveler now assumed Hermes had left for him to find. To use.

Lore was about to ask for clarification on Wrath’s plans when Athena spoke first.

“What is Melora’s involvement in all of this?”

“Wait—what?” Lore began.

Athena held up her hand, silencing her.

The Reveler’s eyes were defiant. But when he spoke again, his tone was more measured. “All of you are fools. Wrath’s plans stretch back decades. He plans to end the Agon, but he needs one last thing to put it all into play.”

“The other origin poem,” Lore said. “We know.”

The new god hesitated, clenching his jaw.

“You are not nearly as hopeless about the hunt as you would have us believe, imposter,” Athena said. “Otherwise you would end yourself or invite a mortal to do it. You want to survive. I see it in your eyes. That longing, that need to feel the ichor burning through you once more.”

The Reveler glared at her, but didn’t deny it.

“You have given answers you know we want, yet not the one to the question I have asked,” Athena said. “What role does Melora Perseous play in all of this?”

“Don’t you already know?” the Reveler asked her.

“Answer her question,” Castor said.

The Reveler spat out blood at his feet. “Fine. Wrath needed me for one thing and one thing alone. And before any of you brainless gnats ask, I don’t know the rest of his plans. I just want to find the deepest crevice in this fecked-up world to try to wait it all out.”

“Still not an answer,” Castor said, this time with a new warning in his tone.

“I made a promise, and I’m not going to break it for you assholes,” the Reveler said. “I can only tell you, girl. That’s what he said. Come with me if you want to know, or don’t. I don’t care.”

The Reveler turned and limped up the steps. Lore looked back toward the others, taking in their alarm and confusion.

“We will keep our distance,” Athena said. “But will not be far.”

Lore trailed behind the new god. The others followed, hanging back as they reached the top of the steps.

The new god stopped once he reached the fountain in the center of the indoor courtyard, forcing Lore to close the distance between them herself. He examined the bodies, his expression odd.

Lore heard the desperation in her own voice as she asked, “What is this about?”

“My one job for Wrath was to find you,” he said without preamble. “He thinks you have the aegis, and he’s going to do just about anything to get it back.”

The black at the edge of her sight grew, and a prickle of numbness found her fingertips. It wasn’t anything she didn’t already expect, but the seed of fear her conversation with Iro had planted finally bloomed.

“Why?” Lore managed to say. “The Kadmides have it—”

“There’s no point in lying to me.” The new god turned toward her, and she couldn’t tell if it was revulsion or pity that crossed his face. “You humiliated him. His entire bloodline knows the truth, even if they won’t reveal it to the others. Aristos Kadmou, bested by a young girl. But it creates a problem for you, doesn’t it?”

Lore shook her head, unable to speak.

“I did find you, you know,” the Reveler said. “It was a hell of a thing—a total fluke in the end because I went looking for him, and he’d found you first.”

“Who are you talking about?” Lore breathed. “Who found me?”

“Hermes,” the Reveler said. “You know where he was those years he disappeared—you know, because he was with you.”

LORE TOOK A STEP Back. “No. I never saw him. I didn’t. . . .”

“All of those years, he wasn’t making plans for his own survival. He was protecting you,” the Reveler said. “An idiotic move.”

The Reveler looked at the fountain, the bloodied water.

“He picked such a pathetic form, but it worked on you, didn’t it? That frail old man. Made you feel sorry for him. Made you want to help him.”

“I . . .” Lore said. “No, he . . . no . . .”

“Did you really think some stranger would go to such great lengths to pay you back? Give you a fecking new home and sweet little life?” His tone turned mocking. “He protected that house, and you. No one could come inside unless they were invited. Took me days to work it out once I found that brownstone. That there was something—someone—there I couldn’t see. He used his power to turn you invisible to all us gods. Clever Hermes. You’re just a lucky little shit that no one else figured it out.”

“That’s impossible,” Lore said, struggling to keep her voice steady. But Castor’s words had already risen again in her memory. I tried to find you for years, but it was like you vanished. There was no trace of you left.

“Is it?” the Reveler cooed back. “Gods can fecking shroud themselves in mist and disappear from the sight of mortals and other celestials. He gave something to you, didn’t he? Something you wore all the time that used his power to invoke the averting gods. ’Course, he would have enchanted it to make you feel inclined to keep it on, no matter what. He would have made your stupid little brain think it was your idea all along. That you loved it.”

Lore’s hand drifted up to her bare throat. The feather necklace.

Her head began to pound, hammering in time with her heartbeat.

“Its protection lasted until his death,” the Reveler continued. “That’s the only reason any of us, including your two godly friends, can see you now.”

Lore curled her hands into fists to keep them from trembling. She shook her head, but her mind was already beginning to make the connections, to find the truth in his words. It couldn’t have been a coincidence that the necklace’s clasp had broken the night of Hermes’s death. . . .