No more tools than a Muggle did sound like an insult, however he had intended it. She ran the tip of her tongue over one prolonged canine and tried not to let her face show her bitterness over the comment. It wasn't as though she had chosen to lose her magical talent. She hadn't walked into this life with her eyes wide open; it was what she had been handed, and she was making due with it. It didn't help that she was a bit proud of the skills she'd acquired as a nurse. It was more than she had ever managed to accomplish as a human witch, and likely more than she ever would have had she remained human and become a housewife. It was more than most vampires managed, too, to have a profession. She could have spent her time skulking around dark alleyways in London, looking for easy meals — that was what was expected of her kind.

She pushed past her feelings at his next question, though, determined to remain professional. It didn't matter what Westerman thought of her, she told herself; she was going to set a good example moving forward. Someday, public opinion would be different. "Fever," she said simply. "And her extremities have been turning blue. It's up to her elbows, now." In the Muggle world, that would have meant a lack of oxygen, but magical illnesses played by different rules. Sometimes, things just changed color for no good reason, it seemed. "She's not entirely lucid — even when she's awake, she's talking nonsense."