Roderick drew a deep breath to calm himself, and another when one wasn’t enough.

“So, the curse should be broken through love?  Does it need to be the caster who breaks it?”

“What matters is that there be a person who’ll have you in the night as a werewolf, just as in the day as a human,” she said with a careless shrug.  “Who never matters unless the potion is tuned for it.  I doubt they planned such a thing in your case.  Your nitwitted lady likely had a chance encounter and received that bit of trickery on someone’s whim.”

She poured him the last of the tea—still steaming hot, even nigh on an hour later—and took it to the kitchen with low mutterings about something stronger and where’s that bottle.

“So—!” she called from the kitchen, cutting off briefly when she hefted a large pot from behind a nonsensical pile.  “Who’s your lover?”

“Pardon?”

“Your lady?  Or your beau, I don’t judge.  Are you sure it isn’t your handsome friend there?”

“NO!”  He shouted so loudly, Henry startled in his sleep.  Red to his ears, he spluttered and grumbled, “Why do you—?  Again, no.”

The sparkle of a scandalous smirk still danced in her eyes when she glanced at him again, completely ignoring his protests.  It was from just such an angle, with the levity of the situation heading off in an incomprehensible direction once again, that Roderick noticed the distinct, elegant point of her ear.

“Miss Sionann…are you one of the Fae?”

“Oh?  You just noticed?”  She seemed pleased.  Her voice took on a pleasant lilt.  “I’m kin, but not of the fair folk proper.”

“Are you also one who dispenses with so-called ‘sanctimonious tact’?”

She didn’t answer directly, but there was a certain set to her posture that held a teasing yes.

That explained it then.  Her quickness to insult, her scandalous and inconsiderate forthrightness, her callous address of mistakes without regard to another’s feelings or circumstances—those were all the mark of her kind.  A bald display of how they flouted the tactful, mindful ways of humans.  What came from her mouth would only be the unpleasant, unfiltered truth.

And yet, however scandalized and embarrassed he felt, he was not terribly insulted.

“Do you think poorly of me for entertaining her actions?” he asked, fingers knitted to forestall nervous fiddlings.

“I think you silly and unawares for falling for her trick.  You can say that, you know.  You were tricked.”  She poured water into the pot and tossed in dried bits of this and that.  “How should I think poorly of a man who, however foolishly, considers a selfish woman’s pride even when she acts such a harpy?”

“…I can’t say I was tricked.”

“Oh?”  She plonked another black, dried something-or-other in the pot.  “She convinced you to drink an unknown potion without resorting to trickery?  I’m not sure who to be more impressed by—her for being so bold, or you, for being even more careless than I thought you were.”

“You thought me careless?”  She shushed him.

“Now, now, tell me the story.”

“Why on earth would I—?”

“It’ll be a long while before the soup is done.  Your retainer still sleeps, and sunset is yet a good while off,” she wheedled, smiling in a way that might have been less sinister had she no great, dark circles enshrouding her eyes.

“Come now, Roderick.  I do love a good story.”