“Cas!” Lore called again. The new god was within feet of them, but seemed to be moving in slow motion. She focused on the Reveler again, saying, “Hold on—just—”
A crack echoed through the stone columns as Athena clenched her hand and snapped his neck.
“Why did you do that?” Lore asked, choking on her shock.
The goddess rose, wiping her bloodied hand against the Reveler’s sky-blue tunic. “He was beyond saving. Would you have the killer gain his power? Would you have taken it yourself?”
No, she wouldn’t have.
“I could have saved him!” Castor said, furious.
“That fool was never going to help us,” Athena said. “Better him dead by my merciful hand than by his enemy’s.”
“He didn’t have to die at all!”
Footsteps pounded on the roof overhead. Lore spun, tracking them as they raced toward the corner of the building.
“There’s another one?” Miles asked.
Lore’s mind blazed with possibility. Maybe the lionesses hadn’t been the ones to fire on the Reveler after all.
Maybe it had been Wrath himself.
Lore bolted for the entrance, ignoring Miles’s startled cry as she knocked the baton out from the door handles.
She burst outside, her feet skidding against the sidewalk. A dark figure scaled down the wall from the roof. He dropped the last five feet of distance, landing hard on the patch of grass nearby.
It wasn’t Wrath. The hunter turned, his serpent mask gleaming in the moonlight. He scaled up the construction fence and dropped down onto Seventieth Street.
She followed.
“Lore!” Castor called. “Wait!”
She couldn’t. Not anymore.
The hunter was a shadow against the darkness of early morning as he headed west, crossing Fifth Avenue and jumping the low stone fence that marked the boundary of Central Park.
Lore’s hands scraped against the wall as she slid over it. The park was closed this late at night, but its streetlamps were still on. If the hunter thought he was going to lose her here, in her park of all places, he was about to be extremely disappointed.
“That’s right,” Lore murmured, “keep running.”
She would follow him to the ends of the city, and he would take her to wherever Wrath was hiding.
Gil . . .
No, this was good. She would keep her gaze ahead now, and she wouldn’t look back. If she didn’t acknowledge the pain, it would leave her, just like everything else. It would. Her anger would be useful for once. It would keep her going.
Not lost, she thought. But never free.
It wasn’t just anger that Lore felt, but humiliation—all this time, she’d believed that she existed outside the reach of the gods, that she was finally in command of her life.
None of it was real.
Not the love she’d felt from Gil, not the hope, or even the good days. Lore hadn’t wanted to change a single thing about the town house or move a single object. She’d felt like she owed it to Gil to preserve his memory, but all she’d done was create another shrine for a god.
He must have laughed at her every single day.
Building a new life, a better life, Gil had told her, will keep you looking forward, until, one day, you’ll find you’re no longer tempted to keep turning back toward everything you’ve lost.
Hermes. Hermes had told her that. And for what? To see if she would eventually give him the aegis?
For the first time in seven years, the thought of the shield didn’t send her body into lockdown the way it usually did. She could almost imagine herself holding it—how the leather strap would feel tight against her arm, the purr of its suppressed power stroking her senses . . .
She could get it. She could take back what was meant to be hers. If the Agon wouldn’t let her go, she would beat them at their own game and break them before they ever broke her again.
Lore would send Wrath and all the others a message they couldn’t ignore.
Where are you going, little snake? she wondered, watching him race through the trees of the empty park. What hole are you slithering back to?
Lore had her answer soon enough.
The hunter had stayed away from the park’s established paths, preferring to keep to the grassy hills and weave through playgrounds and statues. Now he slowed as he approached the fence that edged the Mall.
The broad walkway was lined with park benches and dark elm trees. She hung back, but he had already stopped at the center of the path. Waiting for her.
The hunter lifted his mask.
“Come on, Melora,” Belen Kadmou said. “Come out and play.”
ADRENALINE, HOT AND SWEET, surged through her.
Belen had all the same markers of arrogance as his father. The easy, unafraid posture. The smug smile of someone who had never been knocked off a throne. Even as a bastard, Belen had been afforded some measure of respect as Aristos Kadmou’s only child.
More respect than Lore had ever been given as girl.
Belen tossed his crossbow aside, but pulled out a long knife from the sheath strapped to his inner arm. Lore gripped her own knife, taking quick stock of him. Lore was tall, but he was just that little bit taller. Fighting with small blades would give him an advantage. He would have the longer reach.
But she had more fury. Belen was a gift. There would be no better way to send Wrath a message than leaving the young man’s body for him to find in the park.
Lore stepped out from the shadows. “Don’t mind if I do, you overdramatic asshole.”
“Is that how you want to greet your old pal after all this time?” he crooned.
“The last time I saw you, you were sitting at your father’s feet like an obedient puppy,” Lore said, giving him a quick look up and down. “Seems like nothing’s changed.”
“You’ve always talked too much for a woman,” he said, watching her jump down over the low fence.
“Ironic, given that this is the first time I’ve actually heard you speak for yourself,” she said. “Did Daddy loosen the leash?”
“He is my lord and father,” Belen said. “An unfamiliar concept to you, I realize, as you have neither.”
Lore let the insult go as she began to circle him. “How will your lord and father react to knowing that you didn’t manage to kill any of the three gods who were in that museum?”
“I wasn’t aiming for the Reveler.” His gaze bored into her. “I was there for you.”
She tried not to let her shock slip into her expression. “I’m flattered.”
“He wants it back, Melora,” Belen said. “He won’t stop until he has it again.”
“I don’t have whatever it is,” Lore told him, drawing closer as she circled him again. “You’re wasting your time.”
“I told him as much,” Belen said, holding out his knife. “That you would have used it if it were still in your possession, or given it to the gods you’re hiding behind.”
“And yet here we are,” Lore said. “Seems he doesn’t care much about what you think.”
Belen’s expression darkened. “You are a distraction. It is a distraction. All I need to do is blame it on the gray-eyed bitch. She’s loyal to no one but herself. And once you’re dead, it disappears forever, and he can focus on what he should be doing.”