"Now I'm doubly glad you never confirmed that dinner invitation," he says drolly. "In the middle of a cat fight between the two of you would not have made my list of top ten places to be." He smiles blandly. "No, but you do turn into a cannibal. And a cannibal can never belong in the ranks of the golden pure. Surely all must shudder from him, surely his future must be poisoned, surely he can never live a good life and must succumb either to a living darkness or to hell." He shrugs. "A whisper here, a charm there, an illusion... he didn't take much convincing. I didn't even have to see that anything made it into his coffee. And yet, had anyone said any such thing to him directly, he would have argued, and perhaps convinced himself. That's why I stand by it: when your target is a single mind, less is more."
His mouth quirks. "Er, yes." With (obviously) false lightness, he offers, "However bad it was, I know how it could have been worse."
That makes him chuckle, but he still glints, "A horse's mouth could be arranged. A beaver's teeth, certainly..."
He looks surprised. "Why would you? I mean," he lifts a hand, whose gesture seems to have stolen his verbal expressiveness, "there are different kinds of danger. That man is almost certainly off his rocker, but I'd call him too straightforward to be disturbing." He sighs. They'll probably get on famously.
Hasn't even read Masque of the Red Death with Bella?