Any edge it'd give would be brief, but then again, he was the damned fool who had decided to take her along, which meant this was going to be done by Cora's rules.
Kind of with Booster here, it seems like a really marginal advantage. Why insist on it?
"Or did I?" Cora asked, absently,
I feel like Cora has already guessed that looking obviously supernatural might not be a bad play here. Which makes me wonder how much she's guessing about what's going on that hasn't been told to anyone, because it's speculation?
There are other hints, you know, of supernatural influence.
So the emotion affecting is the 'other' hint, and the main one is just her being seemingly immortal? Other than the logic of "we have magic, so someone here probably has magic." It seems a little flimsy, I dunno. And of course she's immediately going to showing her hand in a deliberately misleading way just in case, which is canny, I suppose.
"I said my best guess," Cora pointed out, "It's wrong, and I know it's wrong, but without more data." She shrugged, dully, as they continued driving.
I feel like the analogue to jump to would have been Mages, really, rather than changelings being a universal constant, but I dunno. I guess emotion affecting people just read as Spring when you've been in the changeling game long enough? And we like, employ a few mortal mages, right?
It was a large house, and looking over its two stories and its structure, he imagined it might have a live-in nanny, or a cook, perhaps both, and that it certainly had housecleaners who came in, but it was a house.
Trying to connect this with information from Dresden, and I don't think it's going to work well. On my first read through I was reminded of that White Court family Harry deals with occasionally, but I think they had more elaborate estates.
Those ghosts, though. They went everywhere, saw everything, and one of them was a young girl who nonetheless asked creepy. And that guy, the ghost, he'd killed dozens of people, and he was pretty sure if Cora asked him to, he'd kill plenty more.
Cora pretty spooky. Not even just from the outside, really, she's a scary woman.
"Hello," Cora said, smiling. It was a polite smile, it was a friendly smile, but it was also a smile on Cora and so Booster decided to increase the odds that this wouldn't end well and took Cora's cold, hard hand.[1]
"Increase the odds that this wouldn't end well" seems inverted, unless I'm missing something.
It was his job to somehow manage to read emotion into the fact that Cora Graves had a deadly poker face. Well, one of his many jobs.
I shouldn't be amused by this, but I am. Poor Booster.
Is this the Asha from KC? I forget if we'd known this before. Wonder if there'll be other little mentions, since Thousand Trods is pretty important nationally.
Glancing at them across from a room when they couldn't even--hopefully, at least--see that she didn't have proper eyes and was basically a walking stiff...now that was unusual.
I do wonder how changelings work with Dresden verse Masquerade things. I remember in DF it's more like... a willful ignorance thing, and maybe a little bit of self editing, but it's not an actual magical effect, right? So they shouldn't have any advantage in seeing changelings, right?
third daughter was busy somewhere else.
Busy with that woman tied up somewhere?
but as with Laura, his looks seemed within the bounds of his age, within some sort of normalcy.
Is this how Vampire kids work? Do they come into their powers and stuff? I really don't remember. It makes sense, but I wonder if maybe they were turned more or less recently and are taking a while to adjust.
He felt as if he should go up to Amelia Gardiner and hand her a lawsuit for copyright infringement. As one of the class known as Fairest, surely he could be the spearhead of a class action lawsuit.
Annnd lost it. This is great.
And he hummed a single note of a single song which was not made on this earth and not meant for it, the words of the song not meant for anywhere.
Not meant for anytime.
The mood whiplash though. This is really creepy and I don't know why. Why does Booster know this song? It's like that "I will open one of my seven mouths and sing the song that ends the world" thing.
He then gave his best smile, the sort that had melted hearts into puddles, and shifted closer to her, but not so close as to be in her space, well aware that there was such a thing as coming on too strong.
Pft, yeah right Booster, I'm sure she would mind.
"Not too busy that I have heard, if you are the Booster I am thinking of, that you have gotten a meeting with him.
...wait is Booster not the Mayor? Need to reread an earlier chapter.
I truly would love to know the secrets of such a talented man, to make such a big splash so quickly, after the companies you seem to associate with languished for so long, as if you came out of nowhere" she purred.
She suspects! I don't know what she suspects but she's close to the truth here almost.
"I do not drink...wine," he said, smirking, playful, almost laughing at the way her own expression grew fractionally more worried, "Swill, all of it."
Real subtle here, Booster. But glad he's keeping her head despite the white court thing, she was getting at him earlier.
And now came the time to collect, because when he said it he saw the fear of the supernatural, and he knew when he'd scored a hit, when something he'd said had rattled her.
Yeah, good job here. Although I'm not sure being thought of as Vampires is really an advantage, in Dresden verse. Wonder if the White Council has anyone at this party?
"But, let me tell you a secret: did you know I can look at someone and tell what sort of drink they'd like? Those people over there, for instance."
I can't tell if she's going to interpret this as a parlor trick, or as an actual ability Booster has. Either one seems like she'd think it was really odd. I'm leaning towards her thinking he's just hinting that he knows they're vampires in an oblique way, but I think Booster didn't mean to do this and he's having his tongue loosened enough to let out actual secrets. At least it's a minor one.
"Getting the King into position," Booster said.
"Oh, yes, indeed it was--" she said, and Booster could have sworn he saw a faint moment of uncertainty.
Or that she was such a better liar than him that she could fake deeply buried hesitation and uncertainty. Which was possible.
I think it's this. White Court vampires are hard to beat at social-fu, yes?
He didn't know, but what he did know was that there was something she wanted that he could definitely give.
D'awww. This leading into dancing is the best.
but also something else, a hunger, a need and a yearning that was as beyond mere attraction as a three-way is beyond an innocent goodnight kiss.
On his way to figuring it out? Also wait, last chapter it's mentioned that she's seen in daylight a lot. Does the WC not have that weakness? I forget tbh.
Cora had told him before about how psychic energy worked and even about how there were humans who could act as psychic vampires,
Everything in this section is italicized and I'm not sure what that indicates precisely. Him being drained? Why isn't it happening when she's blasting him with lust?
Amelia Gardiner was just an ordinary woman. Her eyes went wide, shock and dismay written across them, but he had only a second,
She definitely noticed, yeah. Wonder what she thinks? Can vampires feed on other vampires, actually? I really wonder what she was getting from him.
And for some reason, he'd decided that the biggest threat he had to follow around was her.
More evidence to the pile that Cora looks weird on vamp senses.
"But a lot of them were pretty. Pink and some of them had fuzz and stuff. Maybe they were for girls? But yeah, they were clearly--"
White Court, doing their thing. Kind of wonder how accessible those rooms are? I mean it took a ghost to get in there, so hopefully they're where party guests couldn't wander in...
"Downstairs, there are several beings. Green Dress. And a fiddler. The Fiddler. Holds it and everything, shaggy brows and beard--"
Really wonder what Green Dress is up too. Do the WC know? They'd have to, right?
Now, it could be a Gentry, in which case why was he here
So, probably one of Dresden Fae?
Probably really scattered, apologies. The reread did help me get a few points I was missing though.
