I see you, the gorgon seemed to say. I see you, Melora.

Lore drew in a deep breath, trying to shake the nerves firing through her.

“Stop it,” she ordered herself. There had to be cameras hidden around the room. Someone would be coming to stop her. “Get going.”

There was no latch to open the glass case, and it was too big for Lore to lift on her own. She had one option left to free the aegis, and that was a very, very bad one.

Lore circled the case. Judging by the thickness of the glass, it was reinforced, likely bulletproof. She glanced to the trapdoor.

There would be an alarm. She would have only seconds. . . .

Lore backed away, retrieving the heaviest-looking sword she could find from the nearby rack, and climbed the stairs to the freezer. She laid the blade across the opening of the trapdoor. Just in case.

Then, without risking another minute to second-guess herself, Lore returned to the aegis. With a grin, she used all the strength in her body to shove the case and its pedestal over.

A siren screamed as the room flashed red around her. There was a loud bang that made Lore nearly jump out of her skin. She whirled around. The trapdoor had swung shut as the alarm was triggered, but the sword had stayed in place and kept it cracked open.

As she’d expected, the glass case around the aegis hadn’t shattered when it hit the ground. She picked up a nearby dory and wedged its head down where the glass had been sealed to the flat surface of the marble pedestal. Her arms strained as she cut away at the sealant until, finally, the case and pedestal separated enough for her to draw the shield out.

It was almost as big as her, but despite its size, the shield felt lighter than the arm she hooked through its leather straps. Her heart punching up into her throat, Lore turned and fled up the stairs. The trapdoor pushed back at her, still struggling to shut, but she braced the shield against it and shoved up.

A blast of pressure and light exploded from the shield, whipping the door open. It crashed against the freezer’s floor so hard it broke from its motorized hinges and slid under a nearby shelf. Lore stared at it a moment, then at the aegis. The dull thudding of the freezer door opening and shutting against the flank of meat drew her back into the moment and set her running again.

Lore barreled through the opening into the dark kitchen. The door to the outside had locked as the alarm was triggered, but Lore, quickly developing a theory, smashed the aegis against it. The metal door fell flat against the uneven asphalt of the courtyard.

Lore ran until the world blurred around her. The shield bumped against her side and beneath her chin, but she felt like she was wearing winged sandals as she fled up the east side of Manhattan, weaving in and out of its grid of empty streets.

Every part of her, from her bones down to her soul, felt suffused with glee and pride. The aegis was back where it belonged and the Kadmides would never forget this night or her name. Her family wouldn’t be leaving the Agon, or the city, and Lore wouldn’t be leaving Castor.

By the time she reached Central Park, however, that same fizzing giddiness in her blood began to still, and then cool. She started to turn toward the west side, toward home, but her feet refused to move.

Realization set in the way Medusa’s gaze had once turned men to stone.

The Kadmides wouldn’t forget her name, because they would know exactly who had taken their prized treasure. She hadn’t been careful about checking for cameras in the vault. Any number of them could have captured her face.

Lore sagged against a nearby bench, her thoughts spinning dark, terrifying patterns in her mind.

If the Kadmides had caught her on camera, they would know where to look for the shield. Who to blame and who to punish. And now, with their archon a god, no one and nothing would stand in their way.

Lore let out a choked sob, her heart punching against her ribs until she thought she might throw up. There were so many Kadmides, and so few Perseides.

For the first time, courage abandoned her. Her trembling body took over, jumping the stone wall to retreat into the familiar safety of the park. She needed to find a place to hide.

She needed to do more than that.

I have to take it back, she thought, choking on the realization. They won’t punish us if I take it back.

But the aegis didn’t belong to the Kadmides—it wasn’t theirs, and now that they had a new god, now that Aristos Kadmou had shed his mortal skin, he might be able to use it. Her father told her that wasn’t true, but her father had been wrong before.

Lore crouched behind a bench near the Mall, her body feverish with fear. She smeared the sweat from her face with dirty hands.

And all the while, Medusa watched her. I see you. I know what you’ve done.

No. She could still fix this.

Lore stayed there, her body curled and her face pressed to her knees, until, finally, she decided what to do.

LORE’S CHEST BURNED WITH a scream that wouldn’t come. She was gasping for it, ripping it from the deepest part of her soul, but only a low cry escaped her lips.

Her body no longer seemed to be completely her own. Lore stumbled into the wall, disoriented.

“You . . .” She tried to get the words out. “You . . . you knew . . .”

“Do you see it now?” Athena asked, speaking in the ancient tongue. Any warmth, any sign of humanity had gone out like a doused flame. “The steady hand guiding the loom?”

Lore’s body shook with enough force that it was a struggle to keep her grip on the hilt of her blade. Her vision swarmed with black. If Hermes had told Athena that Lore took the aegis . . . if Athena had known where to find her family and had come looking for it that day . . .

The poison of truth moved through her, turning her insides to ash.

As if knowing her thoughts, a faint smile touched the goddess’s lips.

She killed them.

Not Wrath. Not the Kadmides. It had always been Athena.

As Lore’s shock faded, a feral panic set in.

“I thought—” she began.

She had left her alone with Miles and Van. . . . She had trusted her to honor her oath to not harm Castor. . . . She had . . . She had . . .

Believed her.

“You thought what, that I possessed a heart?” Athena said. “The heart is only a muscle.”

“You killed them.” Her voice was barely a whisper. “Why?”

“I almost didn’t believe Hermes when he told me what he’d seen. The aegis, the object I had spent centuries searching for, found by a child. Carried by a child,” Athena said. “I knew where the last of the Perseides resided. The hovel they called a home. I was delighted to discover a window had been left open for me, almost as if in invitation.”

Lore clawed at her hair, her breathing growing erratic, her heart on the verge of shredding itself against her ribs. Desperation flooded her veins. No—please

no—

“But as I stood inside the room I thought, surely, the thief could not have been either one of these tiny, insignificant creatures. They were smaller than the shield,” Athena said, taking a single step forward into the cell. “I stood over their beds and thought about how easy it would be to simply smother them.”

She moved another step closer to Lore. “But I waited, until your mother and father came to look in on them, until my powers were fully restored to me at the cycle’s end.” Athena stopped before Lore, looming over her. “And then I claimed one piece from each girl for every question they refused to answer. About their missing child. About where you might be hiding.”