Galahad watches the jay fly back to the bush honeysuckle and grips his sketchbook tighter. He wants to ask Magnus if they can try talking to every bird, and the cervids he's seen glimpses of in the forest, the frogs and snakes down by the lake that always leap or slither away before he even sees them. He wants to know what every animal wants. If Magnus asks, maybe they'll stay long enough to be touched -- or drawn.

He wants Magnus to know he's wonderful. He makes Galahad want to surprise him, the same impulse that made Galahad unafraid of Temeraire when he first met him, because Percival would have loved to meet a dragon. Galahad wants to share something with Magnus that's as wonderful as all the things Magnus has shared with him (his hand shakes on the bottle of Mountain Dew, which is another of those things).

Instead he says nothing.