"Technically speaking, dragons are cold-blooded," Kazul said. "We just happen to also breathe fire, and that internal source of heat means we can carry on regardless of the ambient temperature; hibernation is for the lower orders of reptile."

"I see," Cimorene said, and decided it was best not to ask where basking on sunny rocks came into the divide between higher and lower orders of reptile, unless she wanted a lecture on her own similarities to the lower orders of mammal, such as, for example, the unsanitary family of mice she'd only just managed to evict from her kitchen.