Lore

Athena’s mortal form burns to ash, leaving behind a glowing being. The goddess’s essence enters Lore in a storm of lightning and pain, “threatening to tear her mortal body apart” (451). The storm subsides, leaving her with the power and strength of a god. She stops the car carrying the sea fire, smothering its path with dirt—the only thing to stop the flames. She runs back to Track Sixty-One, which is engulfed in flames. Calling upon her new godly strength, Lore beats the floor, intending to send the flames far enough below ground that they have no oxygen to feed on.

Castor arrives as Lore works. He rushes for her, yelling for her to stop, even as Lore finally breaks through and the fire starts to fall. Castor reaches her. The fires are out, but Lore’s power threatens to consume her. Castor kisses her, begging her to stay with him. She holds on to him as a tether to the world “with everything she had in her” (455), finally falling unconscious.

Lore wakes in her bedroom at the apartment with her new power pulsing inside her and Miles leaning over her, concerned. Lore’s been asleep for a day, and there are “only hours left until the end of the Agon” and the end of her time as a mortal (457).