Robert waited patiently for Nerium to finished with her theatrics and her pronouncements. It was overly dramatic and smacked of almost-desperation. Like she badly wanted everyone to know just how scary she was. It was the sort of mistake that he made early on in his career, laying it on too thick.

"Nerium," he said once she was finally done. "Do I strike you as the sort of person that needs to be further impressed by what it is that you can do? I've come to you precisely because of your power and reputation. The display of power and theatrics is completely unnecessary. I've met a lot of very powerful and very scary people in my lifetime. None of them have ever done anything like that before."