“I’m not worth your love, Zoe. I’m nothing but the last Minotaur-and maybe it’s just as well.”
“The last-or the best?”
He laid his head in my lap. Then he looked up at me, with those unbearable green eyes which windowed his soul, and said, “Zoe, I know you’ve loved a lot of Beasts and Men and gotten over them. But was there ever anyone you loved more than the rest? And lost him? And thought you were going to die?”
“Yes, Eunostos. Though I can’t say I lost him since I never really had him.”
“I can’t imagine anyone not loving you.”
“He did, I think, in his way. But not in my way.”
“What did you do?”
“Ached, my dear, and baked a weasel pie!”
“And did you finally forget him?”
“I didn’t want to forget him. He was much too precious to me. I just rearranged my memory. Forgot some things, remembered others.”
“I can’t do that.”
“You’ll learn in the next hundred years or so.”
“And you aren’t sorry?”
“Not for a moment. I haven’t regretted any of my loves. Least of all the one that hurt the most.”
“Will you tell me who he was?”
“Someday, my dear.”