"Then he is lucky I am not a spiteful man," Biffy said. "For I'd give you the bottle."

It was all very forward to have Bull tell him as such within minutes of their first meeting but Biffy was, above all, a gentleman and so he knew how to appear pleasantly nonplussed at all but the greatest tragedies as a matter of birthright. Life with Lord Akeldama had only taught him to be yet more subtle.

"One may thank–or blame–the vampires for my homeland's excess of manners and ritual," Biffy said, smiling out the corner of his mouth as if he hadn't dropped the information just to see how Bull might pick it up.