That wry smile stays on his face, and he shakes his head a little.

"I'm not so far gone I can't trust anybody, Ahoska. I got lucky that way."

Hera found him, and after that everything was different.

"But what I'm trying to say is that you weren't wrong. Hera wasn't, either. We got lucky -- I got lucky -- and I'm glad for it, but . . . there was no guarantee we weren't going to lose somebody else, or everyone else."