"Then I don't know if I'll interest you or not. To begin with I should probably wrap up my hand, because sorcery doesn't work in the mortal world, and then I need a source of food because you don't seem to have one, and then - well, I met a mortal but it was so long ago and we mostly didn't talk about what sorts of lifestyles are available in the mortal world."

"What are the characteristics of sorcery besides not working in the mortal world?"

"Well, I can heal with it, for one thing. Lights. Growing plants."

"Those are all things local magic is able to accomplish."

"The fact that you have heard of a mortal world but haven't heard of any kind of demon leads me to suspect that the mortal world you have heard of isn't this one."

"I didn't have a lot of information to go on, but if they're that big of a facet of most people's lives I suppose it would probably have filtered to me. And I haven't heard of hell dimensions so I suppose there are already more worlds than I was expecting. And this one allows sorcery. Sort of." She frowns at her light. It firms up slightly, then goes out altogether, then reappears wan and small, then brightens suddenly and makes her eep and put it out.

"There are humans who haven't heard of demons, most of them in fact, but it took a not very well-understood series of historical accidents to get them that way. And if fairies had only had contact with the ignorant then they would be less ignorant, at least of fairies in particular."

"Well, I don't know how often humans go to Fairyland and then go home again."

"But then there's the part where sorcery allegedly doesn't work in the mortal world."

"Sometimes fairies go to the mortal world, but I doubt that they're especially public about the details of their personal traits while there without - typically - the benefit of sorcery." She makes more lights. She looks in absolute bewilderment at the pattern of dim and sun-bright they form in the grid she has made. "The harmonics here are drunk."

Giggle.

"These patterns don't make sense. There are some weird tangly ones, but these are... weirder than that. I'm not going to be able to heal myself until I map this whole room. Do you have a smaller room I could map instead?"

"This is the smallest room in this crypt, unless the coffins upstairs count."

"The what?"

"Approximately person-sized box for storing dead humans in. The actual dead humans are long gone from mine."

The vampire sits and drinks tea. He gets out of her way if she looks like she wants to map his tea-drinking spot; it's not like it has any material advantages over the next patch of floor.

She'll get to his tea-drinking spot eventually, but this is a tedious process and she doesn't need to start anywhere near it. "Do you have paper?"

"I could acquire paper."

"It'd be useful to write this down. I could usually memorize the map of a room this size, not in detail but enough to work, but not with the harmonics being so loopy."

"Suppose I'll go find some paper, then." He puts down the empty mug and gets up.

"Thanks."

"Thanks." She inspects the goods, seems absolutely delighted by the graph paper, and uses that to map the room.