Jehan smiles slightly, and falls silent. They walk on, and the Milliways woods chirp and whisper around them.

After a few minutes, a snake slithers across their path, and the sight sets Jehan to thinking. Of snakes, and swans, and eagles, but also of wolves and rats and vultures.

"Do you remember," he says, when he emerges from his reverie, "if any advantages incurred to you, in that other world, by virtue of the shape of your daemon?"