Leaving her behind had been one of the most agonizing decisions Lore had ever made. She wouldn’t do it again.
Iro, she thought. Just hold on a little longer. . . .
VAN WENT TO GET to the Odysseides hunters on the bus. Lore didn’t like it—it wasn’t that Van couldn’t defend himself or talk his way out of most trouble, but they had no idea how many Kadmides were on that bus, or what they were willing to do to keep their prisoners contained.
Don’t die, Lore thought. Please don’t die.
She reached up, adjusting the earpiece. Static crackled over the frequency, punctuated by a few scattered updates from the Kadmides hunters keeping watch from nearby buildings.
“All clear, no movement on the street—”
“He wants us to check the transport for the girl—”
“Shit,” she mumbled, looking down at the glowing screen of her cellphone again for the hundredth time in five minutes. “Get going, Van. . . .”
If ever Lore needed more evidence the Messenger always worked alone, it would have been clear from the fact that he carried an advanced drone in his backpack, but not something that would let him covertly communicate with her and Castor, who was waiting to attack from the roof if Wrath got to Iro before Lore did. In the end, Van had just given Castor a burner phone and linked into a three-way call.
“Are you certain this is the entrance?” Athena asked, her voice low.
Lore glanced across Thirty-Ninth Street, eyeing the shoe-repair shop again. They’d done a frantic search of the streets before Lore had spotted the vacant storefront.
Given that Manhattan commercial real estate often didn’t stay empty for long, it seemed like a good bet, even before she’d noticed the small uppercase lambda beneath the historic site plaque beside the door. The Odysseides used it as a secret mark—lambda for Laertides, the patronymic epithet for Odysseus, son of Laertes.
Now, crouched behind a line of parked cars, they waited. The signal came sooner than Lore expected.
“It’s a go,” Van said suddenly. “Approaching now.”
Lore drew in a sharp breath and turned to Athena. “That’s our cue.”
They darted across the street and took up position on either side of the empty shop. The windows and door had been papered over to obscure the inside. Lore held Athena’s dory as the goddess bent to break the lock on
the metal security gate.
As it rolled up with a growl, Athena pulled on the door behind it. The lock snapped with ease.
Once they were inside, the last of Lore’s doubts faded. The shop was barren, save for a few packs of supplies and water, clearly meant for emergencies.
“This way,” Lore said, heading into what appeared to be the back storage room. There, beneath a hatch hidden by a rubber mat, was a set of stairs.
Lore held up her cellphone to illuminate whatever was below, but it wasn’t necessary. A few scattered lights flickered to life as they passed by a hidden sensor, revealing the crude tunnel hidden beneath the buildings and streets.
“Clever,” Athena noted.
“We’ll see,” Lore whispered.
Van must have muted his cellphone before entering the bus, because it was Castor who gave them the update. “Van’s on—it looks like . . . they’re off—”
The words broke apart into static, then cut off as the call dropped.
“What is the matter?” Athena asked, her expression alert.
“No cell service down here,” Lore said, sprinting forward.
The phone’s light bounced around the tunnel, keeping time with her steps. There was a slight rise to the pathway now, bringing them up out of the deepest part of the tunnel. More lights flickered on, revealing a massive silver door ahead.
As soon as they were within a few feet of it, Lore’s earpiece started catching fragments of the updates being shouted over it.
“What the hell is going on?”
“—headed west on Thirty-Sixth—”
“—grab the bikes—”
“Kyrios, Dorian—anyone have eyes from the roof?”
A slightly pained voice answered, “We didn’t see anything until the bus drove away. One of them must have gotten free—”
“Can you open it?” Lore said, trying to redial Van’s number. The phone still wouldn’t connect her calls, even as the voices in the earpiece became indistinguishable while they shouted over one another.
“Iro?” Lore tried calling through the door. “Can you hear me? It’s Lore.”
Athena felt along the edges of the seamless door, then stepped back, raising a fist. Lore jumped as she slammed her hand into the dead center of it. The skin over her knuckles broke open, leaving a smear of blood across the metal. She hit it again.
“It’s reinforced to withstand a bomb blast. You’re not going to be able to smash your way through—” Lore protested.
But Athena didn’t need to. As the center of the door bent in, it created enough room between the ground and the bottom of the door for Athena to slip her fingers beneath it. Her body shook with the strain of lifting it.
“Iro!” Lore called. “Come out!”
But there was no one inside. Iro had opened the vault door.
Adrenaline spiked in Lore’s system, making a frenzy of her pulse as she ducked beneath the door, into the safe room. Just beyond it, Lore saw the grand hall.
And death.
The Kadmides were too fixated on the scene in front of them to notice Lore and Athena. They beat their fists against their chests, hissing as Wrath leaned an ear down toward a young woman in hunter’s robes. He held Heartkeeper’s head firm in one fist and pressed a knife to his throat with the other.
Iro looked exactly as Lore remembered her—her dark curls had been scraped back into a low bun, revealing the patchwork of bruises and fresh cuts on her face and neck. Her brown skin had gone sallow, and even as her lips moved, her face, a portrait of severe beauty, was livid with contempt.
It was the last thing Lore noticed before the world exploded.
The glass dome shattered as Castor let loose a raw blast of heat and light, sending shards of glass and metal onto the Kadmides still gathered below.
“No!” Athena growled.
Castor had waited as long as he could—Lore knew that, but a tiny part of her echoed Athena’s frustration as his power raged down through the dome. His attack would help them save Iro, which Lore desperately wanted, but it would also force Wrath to retreat again to the shadows, and Athena would lose her best chance to kill him.