So now they lounged in the forward pilotchair, looking through the clear orb of the piscine eye at silvery-clouds of water vapour, and pretended a light, airy tone. "Jean, my beloved, are you well and ready to go?"

Summer nights in Beijing were brutal: hot, muggy, the air thick as the puddles left on the road after a shower, covered in iridescent patches of gasoline. We felt like dumplings being steamed, slowly, inside the room we were renting.

“I'm a bone poet,” she said. “The bonethieves only ever work towards violence and supremacy. All the bones they steal are only to help them steal more bones. They never think of all the better ways bones can be used.”