"He was showing away, more like," Laurence says, his tone a combination of fond and wry and very lightly exasperated. "You must understand; for a long while we hadn't any idea he might show a special technique, the way the fire-breathers or acid-spitters do. I fear it's gone quite to his head."

But Laurence is grateful for it, and grateful that Temeraire has found his place in the world and some understanding of his own kind – even if the surprise of the divine wind is what drove this visit to China in the first place. "It truly is something, though, the divine wind."