Lore

by Alexandra Bracken

“You okay?” she gasped, dragging herself out of his grip. Castor’s hand was flayed open by rope burn. He grimaced as a glow emanated around his palm and the skin mended itself.

Lore grabbed Castor’s wrist, dragging him away from the building, and didn’t let go until he matched her pace. She led him back around the other dumpsters, through the fence, toward the parking garage—one of a thousand secrets that had knotted their lives together.

Lore’s blood raced through her body as they ran, coming alive with the flush of heat through her muscles and the familiar rhythm of Castor’s steps, just behind her. Their old, hidden route still waited for them, as if they had never left, and had never lost one another.

In that moment, the past became the present, and the present the past, and it was just the two of them in the shadows of their city, the way it had always been. The way it should have been forever.

New York was one of the few cities in which a man in full ancient costume wouldn’t be even the third-strangest thing people saw while going about their day. And yet everything about him, from his height to his physique to that face, conspired to catch the eye.

Some of the pained tension bled from Castor’s face as he watched Lore stoop to pick up stray Duane Reade bags fluttering along the sidewalk like aimless ghosts. “What?” she asked, defensive. “I don’t like litter.” She would always take care of the neighborhood that had taken care of her. It was part of the contract that came with being a New Yorker.

The new god nodded, leaning back against the door. He watched her silently, and Lore wondered if she had ever been so aware of another person outside a fight in her whole life. The size of him, his sheer immense presence, overwhelmed the small space.

“As it turns out,” he said, “I’m apparently no good to them at all.” Lore threw her wet paper towel at his face. He startled, looking at her in shock. “You are the best thing to come out of the House of Achilles,” she told him. “Maybe the only good thing. Sometimes you just have to survive to fight another day. Even I knew those were bad odds, and you know how I feel about running from a fight.”

“You are the strongest person I’ve ever known. Always have been.”

“You are the strongest person I’ve ever known, Castor Achilleos, and it wasn’t because of how fast you ran or how hard you hit. It was because even when you got knocked flat on your back, you fought your way back up. You have to do it again now. Whatever you’re feeling, you have to leave it on the mat and get back up.”

Castor’s face was so beautiful, it was almost painful to look at. So she didn’t.

The words felt slow, almost lethargic compared to the speed of her thoughts. Castor put a hand on her shoulder. Lore tried to shrug it off, to step back, but the memory of her sisters’ faces rose up in her mind. The way they’d looked when she’d found them . . .

“Have you ever heard the one about the turtles on Broadway?” The words struck her mind like a torch in the dark, sudden and bright, interrupting her thoughts. “Have I . . . what?” she asked, blinking to clear her vision. “The turtle show on Broadway,” Castor said softly. Lore still didn’t understand. “No—what are you talking about?”

“That was a terrible joke, by the way.” “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ve got seven years’ worth saved up.” “Is that a threat?” she asked.

“You’re not exactly easy to shop for,” Van told him, gesturing to Castor’s size. “It was the only thing I knew would fit. Besides, we could use a little victory on our side.”

;)

A moment later, Castor had also figured it out. The color leached out of his tan skin, either from anger, or fear, or both. “You bound your fate to hers? What the hell did she promise you to get you to agree?”

Castor caught the spear just before it lodged in his heart.

“I enjoy this mortal,” Athena said from beside Miles. “He stays.”

Her gaze shifted to Miles, to see how he had taken Van’s words. Rather than fear, she saw open defiance—the kind previously only reserved for witnessing strangers stealing cabs from other people and the price of kimchi at the bodega.

“Fear is a foreign land I shall never visit and a language that will never cross my tongue,” Athena said.

“I won’t swear a binding oath to you,” Castor said, finally. “But as your life is tied to Lore’s, I cannot—and will not—allow you to die.”

Before Lore could protest, he added, “And yes, I mean us, because I’m not going to be left behind.”

Anger was like a disease to the soul, and no aspect of it was more contagious than violence. If it could be avoided, it would end a vicious cycle before it began. But this was a vicious society.

Gil and Miles had been cut from the same fun-loving, all-too-trusting cloth, and despite her early suspicions, their game nights and endless teasing over dinner had made the house feel warm and safe in a way Lore wasn’t sure she’d ever experienced.

He called her “darling,” a word Lore was fairly certain no one else, not even her parents, would have used to describe her.

“You always knew exactly who you were and who you were meant to be. Everything seemed to come easily to you because you wanted it so badly,”

“You did it because you’ve never known fear,” he said. “Because you wanted to live.” “I know fear,” she told him. “I know it better than my own reflection.”

“You know, some people get so used to looking out at life from the edge of their cage that they stop seeing the bars,” he said. “I’ve never forgotten them, I’ve just learned how to live inside on my own terms. Don’t . . . don’t let your friend get trapped in here with the rest of us.”

She thought about going back upstairs, about telling him what the last few years had taught her—that the cage was only as strong as your mind made it.

Not lost, Lore told herself. Free.

Heat radiated from Castor’s body as he hovered near her.

“How are we going to do this?” Lore asked, stealing a glance at the hunters as they paced from end to end. “Just like tag in Central Park,” Castor said. Lore snorted at the memory, but knew what he was talking about.

Athena turned toward Van as he calmly ran his finger over the surface of the phone, guiding the drone back to them. “While I do not approve of this false bird, I appreciate its lethality.”

Lore didn’t realize she was gripping Castor’s hand until he gave it a reassuring squeeze.

“Surprise is our ally, but timing will be our master.”

Now his shoulder blades were bunched together like wasp wings. Judging by the expression on his face, she was afraid to ask for their destination, on the chance she might get stung by a sharp word.

“Tell me,” he began, keeping his tone light, “how’s your Castor?” With the sun behind him, Lore couldn’t see his face. “He is not my Castor,” she said. “He is my hetaîros.”

Lore was grateful for her little sisters. They may have stolen her old blanket and Bunny Bunny, but they kept Mrs. Osbourne’s gaze constantly turned away from her.

“No lie was ever righted by another lie.”

“It’s not always the truth that survives, but the stories we wish to believe.

But how we are remembered is less important than what we do now.”

“If there were once heroes, they are all gone now,” her father said, rising. “Only the monsters remain. Your courage has always been great, chrysaphenia mou. For some monsters, that will be enough to scare them off—but there will be others, bigger beasts who will delight in the chase.

Monsters had fangs, but that was why lionesses were given claws.

“We must release the past if we are to ever find a future,” he told her. “Don’t be afraid. I am with you, and we are strangers here.

Lore clutched the bottom of her father’s old leather jacket, then forced herself to step away and straighten. She wasn’t a little girl anymore. She didn’t hide behind anyone.

“I am less certain of such things,” her father responded. “I believe we choose what we become.”

“It will never be willingly given,” her father said. “If we are to die, then it will disappear with us. How unfortunate for you that the most stubborn of the Perseides families was the one to survive.”

“I will be a léaina,” Lore told him. “My name will be legend.”

Her father’s hand clamped down on her wrist, yanking it back before it could pierce the girl’s throat. For a moment, Lore saw nothing beyond the look on his face, the horror there. Her chest heaved, and she didn’t understand why it made her want to cry.

I will never gain kleos, Lore thought, her throat thick and her eyes stinging. I will never be anything at all.