“According to a candle wax and weed-stained paperback that I found at the bottom of the closet in my first dorm room. Aquarians are ingenious, creative and adaptable. Plus original and humanitarian. And our symbol, the Water Bearer, is based on Ganymede, a Phrygian youth who was so beautiful that Zeus fell in love with him and whisked him off to heaven to serve forever as the cupbearer to the gods.”

“So what you’re saying,” Edgar concluded, “is that we’re both hot waiters.”

“Maybe,” I replied. “But think about the other part. We’re in a huge mess—fine, a huge mess that I caused—but we’re ingenious, creative and adaptable.”

There was a long pause, and I wondered if Edgar was asleep or silently begging Zeus to come get me, preferably in an airtight container.

“Ingenious, creative and adaptable,” he finally said, putting his finger on my mouth to prevent me from issuing any further cosmic tidbits. He smiled, which might be encouraging, and said, “Yes, we are.”

CHAPTER 21

You are relentlessly repugnant,” Queen Catherine informed me.

Edgar and I were dining with Her Majesty, the three of us spaced miles apart around the largest mahogany table in the palace—the grand behemoth. “He has repeatedly apologised . . .” Edgar chided.

“And I did show respect for dragons . . .” I chimed in.

“No! You do not speak!” the queen admonished me. “You shall never speak again, not only in my presence but anywhere on Earth! You have not earned the power of speech! I shall have your lips sewn shut!”

Could she do that? She was the queen, and we were in her country. I glanced at James, who was standing by the door, and he mimed sewing.

“This Caleb creature . . .” the queen continued.

“His name is Carter . . .” said Edgar.

“This Porter amphibian is the throne’s greatest enemy since the Viking attacks in the ninth century. Except this Carstairs demon is more purely malevolent, an amoebic plague without intelligence, forethought or decent shoes, a form of ditheringly irrational chaos.”

When the Queen of England is throwing this degree of shade, it’s hard not to feel, well, like an insect trapped under a magnifying glass in bright sunlight.

“From your barely concealed dishevelment,” the queen noted, “I presume the pair of you have succumbed to your most primitive desires and ignited a cheap physical release. Which has undoubtedly offended and degraded our entire palace staff. Am I correct in this, Mr. Claverack?”

James shut his eyes and grimaced, as if recalling something too traumatic to bear, perhaps an incident on a foreign battlefield or an especially painful version of Jingle Bells on a Christmas variety show. He tried to speak but couldn’t.