Miles nodded. “I know you think I’m being a reckless idiot—”

“I don’t think you’re—”

Miles didn’t let him finish. “And maybe I am. But I’m in this for her.”

Lore leaned back against the wall, closing her eyes.

“That was a good speech,” Van said, a smile in his voice.

“Thank you,” Miles said, sipping his tea. “I thought you might like it. Everything is life and death and epic stakes with you people. I need to get on your level.”

“It would be a far better world,” Van said, “if we all got on yours.”

The sounds from the TV changed, becoming louder and more pronounced as it trumpeted out the breaking-news-alert tone. A moment later, Miles’s and Van’s phones vibrated and chimed.

Lore went straight for the living room, scooping the television remote off the coffee table. There were footsteps on the stairs—Castor coming down, and Athena coming up from the basement.

The local news channel flickered on. This time, instead of being posted at the security perimeter around Rockefeller Center, a familiar-looking reporter—this one a middle-aged white man—stood in front of a gorgeous stone building. People milled around him, crying or visibly stunned. Their faces flashed red-blue-red-blue with the lights of a nearby police car. Smoke wove out through the dark air like silver snakes.

Lore leaned closer. The chyron streamed with words that stopped the blood in her veins.

The bodies of two children discovered inside vandalized Charging Bull statue . . .

Miles sank onto the couch slowly, his hand pressed against his mouth as the newscaster spoke, clearly distraught, “Police made the gruesome discovery when witnesses called nine-one-one after noticing first smoke and then fire beneath the statue. It—it appears that the statue, which is hollow, had a panel cut out of it so that the bodies could be sealed inside. There are several unconfirmed reports by other eye-witnesses that they heard screaming once the fires began, but the NYPD has not yet determined if these children were alive or dead when they were placed in the statue.”

Castor hung back, his face turned so he wouldn’t have to watch. But Lore refused to look away. She already knew that, whoever the children were—Blooded or Unblooded—they were two little girls.

“Oh God,” Miles said. “They’re just . . . they’re just kids.”

Lore had known Wrath would retaliate for what she did to Belen, but she had made the mistake of assuming he would strike back at her physically. Directly. Not emotionally. Not like this.

She wouldn’t make the same mistake again.

Athena moved closer to the television, studying the images flashing across the screen. The sight of her blurred in Lore’s vision, and the newscaster’s voice disappeared beneath the pounding in her ears. Her whole body flamed with rage.

Miles might not have recognized it, but every other living soul in that room knew that Wrath and the Kadmides had turned the famous statue near Wall Street into a brazen bull—an unspeakably evil torture device from the old country that roasted its victims alive in the belly of a bronze bull.

“Police have erected tents around the crime scene, but an eyewitness gave us this exclusive photo taken moments before they arrived,” the newscaster said. “Please be advised that this image will be upsetting, and that the NYPD has asked us to blur a message left by the perpetrator until they’ve gathered more information.”

The screen shifted, showing the statue surrounded by embers and smoke. There were several people rushing around with fire extinguishers, but one woman had stopped to read something written on the wall closest to the bull.

Lore turned to ask Van if he could tap into a camera, only to find him one step ahead, passing a fresh mug of warm milk to Miles with one hand, and his laptop balanced, program searching, in the other.

Miles looked up in surprise, taking the mug from him.

“It’ll help,” Van said. His hand touched Miles’s shoulder, but he moved away quickly, before Miles seemed to notice the touch.

“I know it’s not a game,” Miles said. “I know that. But why would they do . . . this?”

Lore bit the inside of her mouth hard enough to taste blood.

Van’s fingers trailed over the trackpad, rewinding whatever footage he’d just seen.

“What?” Lore asked. “What is it?”

Van turned the screen around and pressed Play. The night-vision footage was grainy and shot from a high angle. Its green tint gave an eerie feeling to the scene below. Six hunters stood around the bull, their serpent masks partially obscured by the hoods of their black robes. One knelt to light the fire, which caught and flared quickly. Another stood near the wall closest to the bull, using a brush and a small bucket to paint words onto the pale surface. The crimson letters dripped, as if weeping.

BRING IT BACK

A message meant for only one person. Her.

“We need to take this monster out,” Lore heard herself say. “Now.”

“Wait a second,” Castor said. “That’s exactly what he’s hoping for—an emotional reaction. What does that message even mean?”

Athena looked to Lore, waiting.

Don’t do it, her mind whispered. Don’t tell them. . . .

But what choice did she have now? She had to tell them something—if not the truth, then a version of it they could believe. One that wouldn’t stoke Athena’s suspicions or put Lore in the position of doing something she swore she never would.

“The Reveler . . . he told me that Wrath is searching for me because he believes I have the aegis,” Lore said, her pulse thundering until her body nearly shook with the force of it. The static was growing in her ears again, but she pushed through it, trying to keep her voice as even as possible. “The Reveler’s job was to try to track me—and it—down.”

Van blinked. “And just to clarify—”

“I don’t have it,” Lore said firmly, avoiding Castor’s concerned gaze as it fell on her. “No one in my family has since the Kadmides purged our bloodline. The Reveler said it went missing at the end of the last hunt. My guess is that it was an inside job.”

“I see the logic in the false Ares’s assumption,” Athena said.

“I was ten years old during the last Agon,” Lore reminded her.

“He could think one of your parents took it,” Castor said, his brow creased with worry, “and that they told you where they had hidden it. Damn—no wonder he’s obsessed with finding you.”

“Good,” Lore said. “He’s more than welcome to find me. We’ll be waiting for him.”

“We need a different strategy,” Castor said, shaking his head. “One that doesn’t put you directly in the path of his blade.”

“Yes,” Miles said quickly, pointing to him. “That option, please.”

“What are you thinking?” Van asked.

“We need to find Artemis,” Castor said. “And convince her to ally with us.”

Athena scoffed at the idea.

Even though Lore knew the other reason why he wanted to find the goddess, she was still startled at the thought of searching for a being who so badly wanted to kill him.

“I can try searching again,” Van offered. “I haven’t spotted her since she left Thetis House. . . . Are you sure you actually want to find her, Cas? I can’t imagine she’s going to be a happy recruit.”