"I'm certain I can think of something," he says, evidently pleased to have engendered a reaction from the thing. He tips his head to one side in a slow, deliberate display of insouciance. "Particularly since you let a few of your specimens slip away quite recently, didn't you?"

Asadi's tensed, warning hiss provokes a subtle twitch of a muscle in his jaw, his amused veneer sliding into a hard glint in his eyes, an edge suggestive of a latent threat. "To me, that proves something rather important: that you're fallible."