“She liked to scatter hope," Minerva said, taking his offering."Pardon?""Snowdrops. They represent hope. The first flowers in the spring. Hope for a new beginning." She took a sniff of the delicate blossoms and then shyly glanced over at him. "Perhaps you were meant to be here today. To find your hope.”

“Flowers represent hope for us; but we do not represent hope for them! Let us keep the flowers in the soil; no plucking!”

“Aphrodite then promised Zeus that as soon as the girdle could be removed, she would reserve her flower for him. And she told him that her flower, as Nerites had advised her, was like a lovely oyster & she hoped that he liked oysters. And she told him that that was all that she had to give him in return for his seed. And she hoped that he would swallow her flower just as she swallowed his seed.”

“His blue-black hair fell over his face when he moved, like tiny arrows pointing to pronounced cheeckbones. "Starting to think you were going to bail on me." "Didn't know you were expecting me," she said in what she hoped was a casual voice. He gets sexier every day. "Not Expecting, but hoping. Always hoping”

“Perhaps,' she said, leaning forward a little, 'you will tell me your name. If we are to be friends' - she smiled her grave smile - 'as I hope we are, we had better begin at the beginning.”

“If you ever find something worth singing for again", she said, a silent, fierce hope in her heart for his song, "I hope you will invite me to listen.”