"For witches? Birds. Flying birds, not ostriches or kiwis or penguins. Not bats, not bugs, not miniature dragons. Everyone else can be anything. The commonality isn't much correlated with how frequently something is found in the wild, though. Only a handful of unlucky people have fish."

"Huh," says Steph.

"So if another Bell got a daemon I don't think he'd look like me. They might not even match each other, although I guess some of them could."

"I bet he'd fly," says Steph.

"Maybe. Not necessarily. I could see Juliet with some kind of snake," Path says. "Or a lynx or a tiger, maybe."

"Well, maybe. But a general Bell? I bet he'd fly."

"Angela's would," says Path, "no question. I bet you Shell Bell's would swim. Might do both - puffin or gull or something. Stella's would probably fly, so would Pattern's and Aurora's and Rose's. Not sure about Golden. Aegis's might not have wings - flying squirrel, maybe. Cam's might not fly but I could see him with a hawk. Sarion's might not fly, but if it did I bet you she'd have a dove of some kind."

"Yeah, maybe," says Steph.

"There's kind of a sense for these things. I bet you could be really good at reading daemons if you practiced."

"Probably," says Steph, but she doesn't seem excited about it.

Path nuzzles her again.

She nuzzles him back, again.

"I'm sorry you're stuck here," Path murmurs.

"I'm sorry I exist," says Steph.

"I know you didn't mean to," says Path. "But as long as you're here, I like you."

She sighs. "I don't know why."

Path thinks about this. And then he says, "People without daemons have it all mixed up into a single thing that's hard to keep track of. People with daemons do a lot of the emotional rapport and chemistry between the daemons and the people do more of the words. My Isabella likes Sherlock so I like you."

"That's kind of fucked," says Steph.

"Well, if you're mean to me, I might stop liking you, but then there would be spillover to my Isabella," says Path, "because we're the same person."

"That's definitely fucked," says Steph, "because as demonstrated I am much more of an asshole than my Sherlock, and I also come with my very own psychological issues."

"But I like you anyway," says Path irrepressibly. And he snuggles his wing around her.

She makes a sound that is some combination of giggle and sob, and snuggles up.

Daemon snuggles! Daemon snuggles are soothing to the daemons and to their people.

Steph and Sherlock are inexplicably soothed.