Sir, Laurence began,

You at one time expressed a sense of obligation to me, for having brought you the cure for the dragon plague, an act which as you know I performed only from an understanding of my duty as a man and a Christian. I therefore cannot claim that obligation as my right, but if you should nevertheless be glad of a chance to discharge it, I would solicit—

There he had to pause a while before he could continue, slowly, and finish the note: a clumsy, graceless thing unfit to send to any gentleman, much less the emperor of half Europe: Laurence feared every word betrayed his resentment. He would gladly have cut his own throat before accepting any reward or personal recompense; he did not want thirty pieces of silver for betraying his country’s interest, and he knew better than to seek anything which might have altered the course of the war—Temeraire’s freedom, the return of the precious egg: Napoleon was a sovereign before he was a gentleman.

But a pardon, Napoleon might grant, as he would not any larger request. Would almost surely grant, his own vanity gratified by a gesture which would cost him little: he might as well keep Tharkay in a prison as cut off his head. That knowledge did not make the request easier to make; only more imperative. Laurence could not let Tharkay die when the sacrifice of his pride might save him.

“I will be glad to send the letter,” the admiral said, “and glad to delay. I will hope with you, Captain, for a favorable answer.”

—

Laurence passed his evening in his comfortable cell with its uncomfortable view. By now he had counted several times over: although he had reached a different tally each time, there were certainly more than a thousand eggs laid out so widely across the field, perhaps even twice as many. Four rows of large eggs in the middle were easily distinguishable by their blue-and-yellow shells: Granby had mentioned them in particular. “Fleur-de-Nuits,” he had said gloomily. “A whole company of them, and nearly ready to hatch, by the dullness of those shells.” Such a company could threaten an entire army encamped at night, and strike to devastating effect while others were halted by darkness.

And the rest of that enormous host was not so far from hatching, either. The first ranks had already begun to hatch, Laurence suspected, for he could pick out the signs of unfledged youth among many of the dragons in the camp, the hint of ungainliness where some limbs were disproportionate, or as yet unfamiliar to their possessors.

Watching the dragons jostle one another at the feeding troughs for their evening meal, a memory broke into his thoughts, in the slightly peculiar way they now from time to time resurfaced, vivid as though newly experienced: the morning after Temeraire’s hatching, that neat, self-possessed creature all absurdly tangled up in the hanging cot in his cabin, no larger than a dog and furious at the loss of dignity. But Temeraire had never been graceless; he had always seemed to be just his proper size throughout, so that Laurence could recall no single day when he had been struck by the vast transformation under way, when he had looked at Temeraire and thought, Look how large he has become! or seen him clumsy with new growth.

The same was not true here: many among the crowd of young beasts were inclined to snarl their wings upon a talon, or overfly and dump themselves into a squalling heap upon the ground. But soon enough they would outgrow their awkwardness.

The young dragons lifted their heads from their meal all at once: their attention had been arrested by a sudden flaring light somewhere near the base of the mountains, bonfire-high flames leaping. Iskierka? Laurence wondered, but could not tell; at this distance there was only a golden-red bloom of light, which vanished away nearly at once. He was not so very surprised, however, to hear footsteps come along the corridor not a quarter of an hour later: a young officer knocking on the door, asking him if he pleased to step along.

Admiral Thibaut received him and Granby in his dressing-gown, and after polite apologies for disturbing their rest said, “We have had a little difficulty, which I would not wish to conceal from you: Temeraire and Iskierka have formed the notion that if we do not immediately demonstrate the good condition of their egg, and their captains, the worst must have happened; they are some way along to convincing themselves of the case, with all the evil consequences this must entail.”

Laurence’s first thought was fear for Temeraire: they were not at present in circumstances where rebellion could have anything but a fatal result. The dragons here would be neither sympathetic nor persuadable, as the beasts of the British breeding grounds had been, and there were too many of them: even a simple headlong flight could have been stopped. But Granby said, in heat, “And who has set them going, I would like to know, putting word about that their egg is unfit, and talking of smashing: a handsome way of going about your business, I will not scruple to say.”

Laurence looked at him in surprise: Granby had a temper, but not an ungovernable one, to be provoked to such an outburst; and then his meaning became clear.

It had not before occurred to him that Lien had deliberately spoken in so inflammatory a manner about the precious egg. But as soon as the idea had been proposed, it was hard to imagine anything else. Laurence recalled that had never seen any dragon face with complacency the idea of outright, deliberate harm to any egg; it was a crime universally reviled among them. He had supposed Lien’s hatred of Temeraire to have overcome this instinctive reluctance, but her hatred had never been of a fiery, violent nature. How much more likely that calculation had spoken instead, and made so hideous a threat exactly to lure Temeraire into a cold, malicious trap.

At once Laurence understood, and at once shared Granby’s feelings. It was an underhanded piece of scheming, as vicious as threatening the life of an infant to induce its mother to come running headlong into danger for its sake. Even the admiral was silent before the accusation in Granby’s voice, as though he could say nothing in defense of the act, and therefore in duty could say nothing at all. “We wish to do our best to reassure their feelings,” he said only, with a small bow.

They were put on a smallish dragon called Souci: somewhere between a heavy courier and a light-weight combat-beast, with a certain lean greyhound look reminiscent of the Jade Dragons: a fast flyer, certainly, and big enough to hold an armed guard of six men along with them. “All goes well back there?” the dragon asked, snaking his head around on a long and flexible neck, without any sign he thought it unusual to speak to his passengers without the intermediary of a captain. “Good! Up we go,” and launched himself with a grunt and a spring, and after a startling amount of flapping he leveled and was off like a shot towards the mountains, tearing so rapidly along that Laurence’s eyes streamed.