“And you build things? In the myth—story—the Minotaur was kept in a labyrinth, not… building them.”
Something flashed in his eyes then, a fleeting expression I couldn’t quite identify. Pain? Annoyance? “Yes. Ironic, isn’t it? We were imprisoned in such structures. Now I create them.”
My mind reeled with implications.We were imprisoned. Now I create them.Past tense, present tense. History rewriting itself before my eyes.
I should have been terrified. I should have made an excuse and fled. I should have, at minimum, been concerned that I was hallucinating or experiencing some kind of breakdown.
Instead, I felt something else entirely. Fascination. Pure, undiluted fascination that pushed aside fear, leaving only a consuming need to understand.
Here was a living, breathing myth sitting across from me. Every book I’d ever read, every display I’d ever created, every lecture I’d ever attended on comparative mythology—none of it had prepared me for this moment. For him.
I couldn’t look away. The enormity of his presence—not just his physical size, though that was significant, but the historical weight he carried—was mesmerizing. Like stumbling across a dinosaur casually browsing in a bookstore, or finding Excalibur in the umbrella stand by your front door.
Reality had split open, revealing something ancient and impossible, and I was leaning forward, peering into the gap, desperate to see more.
“You’re staring,” he said, not unkindly.
“I’m sorry.” I blinked rapidly, trying to compose myself. “It’s just… you’re… real.”
He made a sound that might have been a chuckle. “Last I checked.”
The hint of humor in his voice did something strange to my insides—a little flip that had nothing to do with fear. It humanized him, which was ironic given that he was literally not human.
“How many of you are there? Are there other mythological creatures? Do you all live secretly among humans? How long have you?—”
I clamped my mouth shut as I realized I was bombarding him with questions. The kind of questions that might make anyone, human or otherwise, uncomfortable in a public setting.
He glanced around the café again, more deliberately this time. “Perhaps we should focus on your ladder issue first. This is not the ideal location for a comprehensive education on my kind.”
“Right. Yes. Of course.” I nodded too vigorously, sending my hair flopping into my eyes. I pushed it back with trembling fingers. “The ladder. That’s why we’re here.”
But it wasn’t, not anymore. The ladder felt ridiculously trivial now. Who cared about library furniture when there was a minotaur sitting across from me? When everything I thought I knew about reality had just been fundamentally altered?
I tried to focus on the diagrams before us, but my eyes kept drifting back to him—to the shadow of his horns beneath the hat, to the fur visible at his neck, to his massive hands as they traced lines on the paper with unexpected delicacy.
He was terrifying and magnificent. A walking impossibility. A myth made flesh.
And all I wanted was to know everything about him.
The heat radiating from him seemed to intensify, or maybe it was just my awareness of it growing sharper. It suffused the space between us, creating a bubble of warmth that felt oddly intimate in the cool café. His scent reached me too—not unpleasant, but unfamiliar. Like sun-warmed earth and old wood, and something wild I couldn’t name.
“Your existing ladder structure is fundamentally unsound,” he was saying, pointing to my sketches with one thick finger. “The support cross-beams are inadequate for the height.”
I nodded, trying to look like I was paying attention, while my brain insisted on cataloging new observations about himinstead. The timbre of his voice. The careful way he turned the delicate paper pages. The strange, amber-brown color of his eyes, visible now as he looked up at me.
“Are you listening?” he asked, those eyes narrowing slightly.
“Yes. Absolutely. Unsound cross-beams. Got it.” I took a sip of my now-cold chai to hide my flustered expression.
He didn’t look convinced. “You seem… distracted.”
“Well, I just discovered mythological creatures are real, so yes, I’m a little distracted.” The words came out before I could stop them, slightly higher-pitched than my normal speaking voice.
He sighed again, setting down his pen. “I understand this is… unexpected for you. If you would prefer to end this meeting?—”
“No!” I said, too loudly. A couple at a nearby table glanced over, and I lowered my voice. “No. I don’t want to end the meeting. I want?—”
What did I want? To pepper him with questions until the café closed? To reach across the table and touch one of those horns to confirm they were real? To call every mythology professor I’d ever studied under and say, “They’re real!”?
