She nods. "Okay."

"But first--I have spare garments, assorted nonperishable foods, and miscellaneous other supplies that you can use since you arrived here with nothing but the clothes on your back."

"Thank you," she says. "That's very nice of you."

"I don't generally consider myself to be exceptionally nice, but it would be both exceedingly heartless and exceedingly wasteful not to help someone who had fallen into one's sphere of influence through no fault of their own with neither material possessions nor the basic cultural knowledge that a local homeless person would possess who presents an interesting magical problem when I have so many resources to do it with."

"I guess."

He eyes doors fifteen, three and seventeen. "For the record, because it could become extremely awkward for you to discover this by accident later, not that I expect you to know what this means, but--I'm a vampire."

"What's that?"

"It means I don't age--I'm over seven hundred years old, at this point--inclined to be nocturnal in the same way that humans are inclined to be diurnal, burn more easily than even the fairest-skinned human in the sun, have heightened senses, cannot consume solids and must consume human blood. That's why I have ready preparations for guests, and why three other rooms are occupied right now. I find humans who require something--a place to stay for a while, a debt paid off, to evade a given person, or something else--and do not object to, in exchange, staying in my home for a prearranged period of time having blood safely and hygienically removed at prearranged intervals. I hasten to clarify, in case clarification is needed, that I do not expect you to act as such a donor as a result of staying here. Your purpose for being here is entirely different."

"...That explains some things about your reflection."

"My what?"

"In my selfspace. How I see magic and things. You look - well, I wasn't sure, all the magic here is so strange, but it makes more sense now."

"Oh. That makes much more sense. A common misconception about vampires is that we don't reflect in mirrors or mirrorlike surfaces," he explains.

"I haven't heard of vampires before, so I wouldn't know."

"No, I wouldn't expect you to. But that was the first thing that came to mind when you mentioned there being something odd about my reflection as a result of being a vampire."

She nods.

"So how did I look? I promise not to be offended."

"What do you mean? Your reflection? It mostly looks just like you, but... with things."

"I'm curious about what sorts of things. If you'd rather not answer, for whatever reason, of course you needn't."

"I could just show you if you had a selfspace... I'm not sure how to describe it otherwise."

"So it's not, say, physical objects like fangs or blood?"

"Well - sort of. It's... like your reflection is glowing, except not quite, and there are parts of it that look like they have magic tucked away in them, and now that I know some of what the magic does I can tell where it keeps those parts." She pauses consideringly, then adds, "It does have fangs, now that I look, but they're not out right now."

"Ah. Yes. ...Another magical feature of vampires is that we can be...influenced by the blood we drink. The effect is entirely additive; drinking the blood of a genius may temporarily boost one's cognition, but drinking the blood of a dullard will not impair it. However, animals are sufficiently different that any additive effect has...unpredictable results, which is why the blood of humans--and relevantly humanlike creatures--is necessary."

"...What sorts of things does drinking the blood of animals do?"

"In mild cases--extraneous instincts. In more dramatic cases--overwhelming compulsion to follow those instincts, and occasionally physical transformations."

"That sounds really inconvenient."