“But that is only by good luck!” Temeraire said.

“I do not deny there was a risk,” the dragonet said judiciously, “but one must take risks occasionally to achieve one’s ends, when there is no better way of going about it. There is no sense lamenting a necessary evil.”

“It was not necessary for you to nearly burn up Granby,” Iskierka said stormily, “and the next time you mean to take risks, you may take them with your companion, and not mine. Why you couldn’t have made up your mind to take Napoleon’s son, I am sure I don’t know. He will be an emperor, too: it is all muchwhatlike.”

“That,” the dragonet said severely, “is an extremely shortsighted remark. As though one emperor were just the same as another, to all purposes!”

“It would certainly not be as good, as to be companion to the Emperor of China,” Temeraire said, “but for my part I do not see why you should have ever needed to consider becoming a traitor, and joining the enemy.”

“That term I reject, for I should have betrayed no-one in making such a choice: my loyalty has not been given either to China, or Britain, or France,” the dragonet said with a martial light in her eye, drawing herself up and thrusting her head forward in challenge towards Temeraire, although his muzzle loomed larger than her entire body. “I recall you telling me quite clearly that the choice of companion should be my own: did you only mean, so long as I should choose a companion agreeable to you?”

“Oh, well,” Temeraire said, and drew his own head back to rub against his flank in a gesture of embarrassment; Laurence indeed recalled overhearing him make such muttered lectures to the egg in its shell, when it had first sat in state upon the Potentate. “But I do not see why you should at all want to join the French, after they stole our egg, and after Napoleon has caused so much trouble for everyone.”

Satisfied to have defended her honor, the dragonet settled back down onto her haunches. “I cannot say that I have perceived any distinction among the nations of the world,” she answered, “which should entitle any of them to either my full approval or condemnation. I have heard more than enough, being carted here and there and exchanged from one side to another, to persuade me that none are without blame for this unhappy state of quarreling and perpetual warfare. That, I can heartily condemn. It seems perfectly plain to me that it is war itself which must be halted, without wanting one side or another defeated in particular.”

She spoke severely. Laurence supposed her time in the shell had certainly been an alarming period enough to give her a distaste for its cause, if she had been aware through much of it to remember; but she did not seem to have grown shy—perhaps not surprising, when she had already produced a disaster of such magnitude while not yet the size of a pony. It augured ominously for her future capabilities, and he could not help but be concerned to find her so willing to entertain all suitors.

“Certainly the war must be halted,” Temeraire said. “That is precisely why we mean to defeat Napoleon.”

“That would stop this war,” the dragonet said. “But I am quite certain that it would not end all war. I dare say you and your allies would all quarrel among yourselves straightaway, and start a new one.”

“Well, if there were no war, anywhere, how could one ever take a prize?” Iskierka put in. “That would not be agreeable at all.”

“I would be very happy to see war come to an end, myself; although a neat little skirmish now and then, with a prize after, no-one could really object to, I think,” Temeraire said. “But I should like to know a great deal how you suppose anyone should accomplish that.”

“Well, I don’t know, yet,” the dragonet said, “but I mean to find a way: just because the business will be difficult is no excuse for not making the attempt. But of course my choice of companion is of great importance. I am not sure that the Emperor of France would not be best situated, after all, to help me.”

“You may be sure Napoleon will not want anything to do with you after this,” Temeraire said.

“Nonsense,” the dragonet said. “Most likely he does not even know I have hatched yet. Since you have escaped, I dare say he will blame the two of you, instead, and if anyone did see me do it, why, I am newly hatched, and no-one could expect me to know exactly what I was doing. Perhaps it was only an accident, or perhaps you even set me on it.”

“We did not, at all!” Temeraire said, with a gasp of indignation.

The dragonet flicked her tail-tip back and forth to wave this away. “I am only saying there are any number of reasonable explanations he might settle on, should he wish to excuse me. And I am sure he would wish to, if I chose to join his side; I imagine he will be quite impressed with what I can do,” which was inarguable. “I did hope it would answer,” she added, with a note of satisfaction, “after all this talk I have heard in the shell of the conjunction of the divine wind and fire-breathing, but I could not be quite sure until I had tried it. I am glad to have made proofs of it!

“But I cannot yet tell whether the Emperor of China or the Emperor of France will be better suited to assist my task. Or,” she added, earnestly, “perhaps the King of Britain: I hope you do not think I am unwilling to consider him. So hadn’t we better be getting under way? Which way is this Dover of yours, that you want to get to?”

—

“Laurence,” Granby said, when at last they bedded down just before dawn, “what a perfect terror: what are we going to do with her?”

They were some ten miles from Dieppe as best Laurence could guess—they had found an isolated farm in disrepair, the house and barn abandoned, the latter with a collapsing roof: Temeraire and Iskierka were now hunkered down behind it, with a stand of trees and undergrowth to screen them from at least a first glance, if not a second. The dragonet, having slept nearly all the day on Temeraire’s back, had roused only long enough to go and fetch a heap of straw out of the gaping hayloft; she made herself a nest in the warmest hollow between her progenitors, and satisfied with her arrangements went directly back to sleep.

Laurence was arranging handfuls of dry straw himself, with splinters, to make tinder for the armful of wood Granby set down. The fire would be a fresh risk, but in the half-light of morning the smoke might pass unnoticed: they were a good distance from any road but a half-overgrown track. The night had been cold, and they had none of them been dressed for flying: even huddled with Granby and Tharkay in one of Iskierka’s talons, and held against the churning warmth of her belly, a heavy chill had settled deep into Laurence’s limbs; he thought they must have a little warmth before they dared sleep.