The architecture of the Minotaur's heart is ancient. Rough hewn and many-chambered, his heart is a plodding, laborious thing, built for churning through the millennia. But the blood it pumps - the blood it has pumped for five thousand years, the blood it will pump for the rest of his life - is nearly human blood. It carries with it through his monster's veins, the weighty, necessary, terrible stuff of human existence; fear, wonder, hope, wickedness, love. But in the Minotaur's world it is far easier to kill and devour seven virgins year after year, their rattling bones rising at his feet like a sea of cracked ice, than to accept tenderness and return it.

At home in bed the Monotaur doesn't remember what he said to Kelly, if anything. She put her hand on top of his. He tosses and turns throughout the night, maybe sleeps, maybe not.