Page 49 of The Bound Zodiac

Jamie snorted. “Wasn’t rare on the home worlds. Back then, a lot of Aelari had animal familiars.” He tossed Gretchen a strawberry from a plastic container on the bench. She snatched it in midair and made a show of crunching it so the juice ran down her beak.

I leaned back against a stone bench, pushing my hair back from my face.

Draco looked skeptical. “I don’t get it. I mean, obviously Gretchen’s intelligent. And I can feel Noodle poking at the bond when he’s bored. But ninety-nine percent of zodiacs don’t have that connection. Is it bloodline or designation, or what?”

Jamie considered for a second. “On Earth it’s just rare. Something about the environment, maybe. Or just that animals here aren’t as evolved as the ones we left behind. On the home worlds, the animals were further along their evolutionary process. Most of them could communicate telepathically, at least with certain zodiacs. Pisces, mostly. Sometimes Cancer. Ophis, obviously.”

“Obviously,” I echoed. “Why ‘obviously’ for me?”

Jamie’s mouth curved. “Ophis were adept at communicating with pretty much any type of serpent, but over time the ability grew, and many of them could speak with any animal that bothered to speak back to them.” He shrugged. “Pisces were best at it. Our magic is rooted in the mind, so it came more naturally.” Jamie looked at Noodle, who had decided to appear finally, and dangled himself from a branch overhead, his tongue flicking lazily at the greenhouse air. “I’ve heard of maybe three or four zodiacs with animal familiars, and one of them was a professor when I started here. They’re that rare.”

“So Earth animals are just less evolved then,” Draco mused like it all was finally clicking.

Gretchen ruffled her feathers and fixed Draco with a look so withering I felt it through the bond. ‘As if I’m not standing right here.’

Draco smirked. “No offense, of course. You’re obviously highly intelligent.”

‘Noodle smart,’ came a hissing voice from the tree. He slithered down the branch, coiling himself in a series of lazy S-shapes until he landed, perfectly balanced, on the edge of a wide planter. ‘Smarter than you.’

I laughed at the look of shock on Draco’s face. “You were asking for that one, I’m afraid.”

Gretchen hopped down from her perch and strutted over to Noodle, eyeing him up and down. He flicked his tongue at her, and she croaked a little greeting. The two of them just sort of stared at each other for a moment, sizing each other up, then wandered off together toward the far side of the greenhouse, clearly deciding we were no longer entertaining.

‘Don’t break anything!’ I called after them.

The next morning, they guys were already arguing, and I had barely even cracked my eyes open and dragged my ass downstairs.

“It’s meant to be just off the boil,” Lucas was saying as he measured out coffee grounds. “Let it rest for twenty seconds, then pour.”

Aiden tipped his chin up. “That’s a myth. Full boil gets the best extraction. More caffeine.”

“That’s how you burn the beans, genius,” Eris put in from the couch, where he was halfway through a box of shortbread. “Just lick the bottom of an ashtray and you’ll yield the same results.”

“Can’t we just drink it?” Jamie, from the kitchen table, sounding genuinely pained. “Please. I’d drink it cold, right now, if it meant I didn’t have to listen to this.”

“I can make some tea instead,” Theo offered, already moving to fill the kettle with water. “Proper English tea. None of that sludge they’re guzzling down.”

Draco’s eyes flicked up, catching mine. “You want some, Jupiter?”

“I want it intravenously,” I said, slumping onto the arm of the sofa. “But I’ll take whatever’s available.”

Percy, who had been standing with his back to the stove and arms folded, just grunted. “Coffee’s not going to fix you if you don’t sleep.”

“I slept,” I lied. “I slept so hard my ancestors felt it.”

Rowan eyed me, one brow lifting. “You look like the walking dead.”

“Flattering,” I muttered.

Noodle had draped himself across the top of the fridge, tongue flicking in and out as he surveyed the chaos below like an unimpressed god. He’d tried to swipe at the coffee scoop twice already, just to cause havoc.

I bit back a laugh and reached for my mug just as Draco slid it my way, the surface swirling with actual latte art. I stared at it. “Did you…? Did you put a little snake in the foam?”

He grinned. “An uncanny resemblance, right?”

Noodle preened, if it’s possible for a snake to preen.

I took a sip. It was perfect. I almost wanted to cry. Instead, I just wrapped both hands around the mug and tried to radiate ‘do not disturb’ vibes so nobody would make me do anything for at least ten minutes.