"Mortals are brave in proportion to their foolishness," the woman replied, nostrils flaring slightly to admit two pencil thin lines of smoke.

"Perhaps if they knew they were stealing from me, they might have made more survivable choices," she continued, a slight sibilance creeping into the word 'choices'. She made a few more keystrokes on the laptop and then looked up, giving January her full attention for the first time since he had came in. Her eyes were weighty and ancient and they seemed the black grey of smoke rising from Vesuvius. 

"The thieves took what was mine only out of happenstance. What they were truly searching for belonged to another," she explained. Yuki's Japenese pop music made an odd counterpoint to the dragons intense focus, seeming to hover on the edge of perception.

"It was a lock box which contained the last will and testament of one Harold Robinson."