“What was that?” Rue looked at her sharply.

“Nothing at all.” Prim widened her eyes and continued petting the feline.

Rue said, in an effort to shift matters, “Dama, I do wish you’d give me something more challenging to do.”

“All in good time, my sweet.” The vampire reached for the snuff box but Rue held it away from him protectively in her bare hand, a hand he wouldn’t dare touch.

“What’s this, Puggle?” Dama tossed his blond locks and pouted. Given that he had what one admirer had once described as the face of Ganymede on earth, the pout looked very well on him. Which he knew, of course.

“Nope,” Rue could resist the pout. “First tell me why it’s so important.”

The lower lip wobbled.

Primrose hid a smile at the vampire’s theatrics, so very like her own earlier that evening.

Rue waggled the little box temptingly back and forth out of the vampire’s reach.

They all knew he could not take the box away from her, even with supernatural speed. The moment he touched her skin, Rue would have his vampire abilities and still be in possession of the snuff box. The vampires called her soul-stealer, the werewolves called her flayer, the scientists metanatural, and there hadn’t been one like her for thousands of years. She’d spent her childhood spoiled and studied in turn, combating three overbearing parents. It made for interesting results. Results like the fact that even the most powerful rove in the whole of the British Empire could not extract one snuff box from her if she didn’t want him too.

“Troublesome infant,” grumbled Dama, and stopped the simulated pouting.

“Well?”

“It’s not the snuff box, nor the snuff, my little limpet.”

“Oh?”

Dama crossed his arms. “Did you examine it closely?”

“Of course.”

The vampire arched one perfect blond eyebrow – exactly the correct shade, slightly darker than his hair. Artificially darkened, of course, but then his hair was artificially lightened every evening. Dama left nothing to chance, least of all his own appearance.

Rue stood and went to retrieve a pair of high powered glassicals from a nearby sideboard. She popped them on, the single magnification lens emphasising her left eye to such an extent as to seem grotesque. Even though, if asked, Rue would have said her eyes were her best feature.

She checked the snuff box over carefully, running her hands along the sides. Soon she spotted the secondary catch inside the box, buried in snuff. It was tiny and hidden beneath the lid’s silver hinge.

“Careful!” warned Dama, too late.