“I’m a man of many talents,” Rayth shrugged, flashing a toothy grin at Lune over his shoulder. Though he made the statement carelessly, he was aware of the way most people took his words when he insinuated that he wasn’t just a boy. His eternally youthful face and the energetic pitch of his voice were deceiving. Humans always assumed he was on the upper edge of his teenage years even though he was well past that point of his life. By vampire standards, he was technically still quite young, but he had enough life experience to consider himself a seasoned adult by now.
	At Lune’s following assertion that she wasn’t going to leave because of him, he bit the tip of his tongue to keep himself from pointing out that she had almost left once because of him already. He didn’t know what had brought her back the second time around, but just in case the thread was fragile, he didn’t want to upset her and make her change her mind again. If he had to tell Frieda that he’d scared off their newest member twice, he’d be mortified.
	“I guess not,” he agreed congenially instead.
	Lightening the mood, her last quip earned a bark of laughter from the half-vampire. “Giant mosquito?” he repeated incredulously. “I’ve heard a lot of crazy names through the years, but that one’s a first, Smurfette.” Ending the nickname on a hard ‘t,’ he shot her a waggish wink. If it was a battle of wits she wanted, he’d gladly stand toe-to-toe with her. Most of the other monsters in the circus were too serious to banter, so maybe there was a benefit to keeping a human around after all.
	Sensing that the tension had lifted, Rayth stood up from the bench and glanced at the large fabric flaps that curtained off the backyard. Between his nap and the conversation with Lune, the other troupe members had probably made some decent headway on packing up all their gear. He didn’t want to wait until they were done before he showed her to the train. Someone might mistake her for a lost after party invitee on the way and pounce.
	“Now that you’ve made up your mind, do you want me to show you where you’ll be staying?” he asked, turning back to the blue-haired girl. Just in case she was still wary of going anywhere alone with him, he chased the question with an impromptu piece of motivation: “If we beat everyone else back, we’ll get first dibs on the showers.”