Suppressing the urge to chew on her lower lip, Katya kept her eyes on her runes, not wanting to look at Aiden. The nervous habit, one she had done away with in her early 20s, was starting to rear its obnoxious head. She didn't like displaying her emotions, didn't like letting people know so obviously how she was feeling, and it bothered her that Bellum Letale and its residents pushed her toward such blatant displays. She supposed she would just have to start meditating again.
She wondered, though, how they might progress. On Vlad's hand, she had seen death. She hadn't said anything about that - it was his business, not hers, and she kept her confidences even when it wasn't specifically asked for - but it was still there. As much as he wasn't Dracula, he was. That, more than anything else, bothered her.
Finally, she turned her attention to Aiden, clearly not bothered by the stretch of silence between them. "Tell me," she said, "are you believing in fate?" It was such a cliche question, corny and cheesy and so very predictable coming from a fortune-telling woman with an accent. It played into every American stereotype she had discovered about gypsies. Not for the first time, she was thankful she wasn't Romani.