The bond Lore and Athena made should have killed them both, but Athena lied about the bond, too. She remains alive and well as Lore dies. Athena starts to drag Lore away, intending to find Castor and force him to heal her, but she stops with a new thought. She leaves Lore to die, her parting words that it was a “shame you did not even possess the courage to drive the blade through your heart” (374).

Lore arrives home to find the window she left open is closed. She thinks it means her parents are awake. Knowing she has to face their anger, she goes inside and stops outside their apartment. While she builds up her courage to enter, something wet soaks into her shoe. She looks down, where “dark blood seeped out through the crack below the door and pooled around her feet” (376).

Near death, Lore dreams about the night she found her family dead—complete with pools of blood and her sisters’ eyeless corpses. In the dream, a light calls to her. The light resolves into Gil, who encourages Lore to get up and fight. He begs her to follow him away from the Underworld and toward the world of the living.