Geoffrey MacAlpine prepares to confront the wyrm with his unexpected partner, the American photographer Jacintha Lowell, while Calpurnia Kingsley fumes back at home with her diminished role as a researcher. They almost all got killed last time. But Geoff has a little surprise of his own, to Jacintha’s delight. And Calpurnia finds out that the benefits of having children are not always obvious. It’s all in chapter 7, “Unexpected help,” of As the Wyrm Tyrns, my weekly serial of a band of magicians trying to tackle a fire-breathing monster before it contributes to global warming by burning down a city.

Is this what the wyrm looks like? No, it’s actually a sketch from 1832 of the common or weedy seadragon, which inhabits waters off Australia and reaches the whole of 18 inches in length!