Page 30 of Moody as a Minotaur

I leaned back and took a bite of the pastry. Holy Magic. It was perfect. Flaky and sweet, but not too sweet. The rich savory notes of the rosemary balanced the apple beautifully.

“I thought they might be our fall special. What do you think?”

His gaze was fixed on me as he brushed his fingers over his mouth. Shit. Did I have crumbs? I licked my lips. His eyes darkened and his hand trembled a little as he lifted his coffee to his mouth.

Right. He was worried about something, wasn’t he?

“The pastry is amazing, but I think you knew that,” I said. “So, tell me, what’s going on?”

He bit his lip, and his gaze darted around my office. He seemed as nervous as I was. “Oh. I have a new one for you.”

“Yeah?” I humored him.

“Where do cows go on a Saturday night?”

“You tell me.”

“To the moovies.” Parker grinned.

I snorted.

We stared at one another for a long moment. Great. We were back to that same awkwardness again.

“You didn’t come here to tell me a joke.”

“No.” He glanced at his hands and shook his head. “I feel silly coming over here. I shouldn’t have said anything this morning.”

“Hey… Talk to me.” I wanted to reach over and pat him on the arm or the leg or something, but if I touched him, I might not be able to pull my hand back again. My control was barely hanging on.

Parker was in my space.In my space!I wanted to corral him here and never let him leave, even if the only things I had at hand to create a maze were my desk, a filing cabinet, and a couple of chairs.

But then I really would be a monster, just like the minotaur in the myth.

Scholars believed the bloodthirsty King Minos asked Daedalus to construct a complex maze to imprison the minotaur. But even though the minotaur was imprisoned, the king continued to use him as a weapon against the Athenians right up until the poor supe was murdered in his home. But it was more than a myth for my kind; it was a cautionary tale.

As a species, we understood what it was like to be trapped, and I could never do that to another person. I doubted any minotaur could, even if the temptation was there. It went against everything we were.

Sure, the Eternal Magic had stepped in after that whole fiasco with Theseus, giving us a deep understanding of where we were in the world, physically. After that, we became the ultimate navigator. The apex of all wayfinders. We were better than any modern GPS system. She’d ensured we’d never be trapped like that again, but it was a history we’d never forget.

But my impulse to hide Parker away wasn’t about imprisoning him; it was about keeping him safe. Would that make it okay? I doubted it.

Besides, it wasn’t like our enemies couldn’t navigate mazes too. Even that asshole Theseus had found a waythrough it to hunt and kill the supe. It was funny how minotaurs tried to forget that part of the tale, probably because we always felt protected at the heart of a maze. But that was a false sense of security. We were never truly safe.

And sometimes the things that made us feel safe were also the things that trapped us.

Great. I’d just talked myself around in a convoluted circle. Parker had completely disoriented me, which was supposed to be impossible to do to a minotaur.

“Yeah. I guess that’s why I came…” Parker nodded. His cheeks darkened even more. He fidgeted with the corner of the paper napkin.

“You said you wanted to talk about your grandmother. Is she okay? Did something happen since last night?”

Parker heaved out a deep sigh and set the pastry and his coffee on my desk. I noticed his hands had a slight tremor. “I shouldn’t bring you into my family’s weirdness, but ugh… I can’t talk to my mother about it, because she’d probably come to Willow Lake then too. And we already have enough of my family here.”

I waited.

“It’s all my fault that Fin and Nana are here.”

I froze. He’d summoned them here? I’d been wrong about him. I took a big gulp of coffee, which made my stomach churn even more.