Alasdair wasn't even aware of how he leaned in before he answered. "Anything you like." It was the sort of phrase he'd thrown around plenty of times before, when he was trying to talk his way into or out of something, but this might have been the first time he'd fully meant it.

He looked at the other man for what was probably half a beat too long, before forcing himself to pull his attention away. Another trick — something to seal the deal. Dare's brain scrambled to come up with something suitably impressive. He held out his hand with his open palm up and then worked a slow spell. It conjured a miniature cloud of smoke in his hand, which spun and coalesced into a miniature pegasus. Once it was formed it was still for a moment, then took off to swoop through the air above their heads. "What do you think?" he asked once it had made its first full circle through the air.

---

  

Well, that was quite the generous offer. There were plenty of empty rooms in his part of Grandmamas house alone. They would be more than able to play host to the illusionist. He was intrigued since he liked interesting and fun things.

Alexander watched as the man held out his hand, wondering what he was doing now. Oh a pegasus! He was generally always easily impressed and now was no exception. "I think you're very talented. Can you make goats too?"

---

  

Dare wasn't sure anyone had ever asked him to conjure a goat before, but if that was what it took to get him an invitation to stay with Echelon, he'd find a way to churn out a goat kid a minute for the foreseeable future. "I can make anything," he boasted, though this was not exactly true. He decided to explain more, half because he thought Echelon might be impressed by some fancy-sounding words about illusion magic and half because he needed a second to try and remember exactly what goats looked like and what spellwork he would need to make one. "When you get particularly good at a certain illusion, you can use that spell as a sort of template for others that are similar. So a pegasus, a horse, a threstral, a donkey — I could conjure those all with some variation of that last spell. Though the devil's in the details, of course," he said with a grin. "So the real artistry comes in making sure all the details are done to perfection."

The miniature goat that he'd started conjuring up was currently lacking all detail, but he had another third of a second to figure that out. Horns — (oh, was this a veiled allusion to something else? Echelon was more clever than Dare had given him credit for) — hooves, some scruffy hair on the bottom of their chin. What did a goat's tail look like? Short, he thought. Hopefully that was right. The conjured goat — with a round puffy tail, like a domesticated rabbit — bounded off the palm of his hand, and Alasdair held his breath as he waited to see how it was judged.

---

  

The man claimed that he could make anything and Alexander was suitably impressed. After all, he was not exactly all that great with his wand. At least not the one he used for spellcasting. The man was speaking and honestly his words were not sticking with Alexander. That was the usual mode of things though so Alexander simply smiled and nodded along like he knew what Greyback was going on about. His "too long, didn't hear" of the thing was that Alasdair Greyback was excellent and knowledgeable about what he did.

He watched as Greyback conjured up a miniature goat, reminding Kit somewhat of that one scene in Hercules when Zeus makes Pegasus. He chuckled as the vision of a goat appeared from what had initially been something lacking detail. "My goats tails aren't quite that round and puffy but this looks just like them," Alexander said with a delighted laugh. "Do you want to come see my goats? Usually they stay at the Hogsmeade stables but they're at my house right now while the stable does some renovations." He'd had them a while now, starting from 1877 when he had accidentally stolen a baby goat. The originator was quite old now but it'd had children over the years, some of whom Alexander had opted to keep.

---

  

There was nothing in the world Alasdair wanted more than to go see this gentleman's goats. Not that he cared a whit about goats, of course, but he had long since mastered the skill of pretending to be interested in anything that would ingratiate him to someone, and he would have jumped at literally any opportunity to spend more time with Echelon. An invitation to go somewhere privately — except for the goats, if they counted — was just about heaven.

"Yes," he said through a strangely dry mouth. "I'd love to see them."

---