Should I not? [It's a flippant question, rhetorical, equally wry. He folds his arms.] We've been abducted to a false world where demons, witches and ghosts are known and accepted as reality. Alchemy as a valid science is not a difficult leap to make.

[So yeah, if he'd immediately gotten here and heard Octavian talk about alchemy, maybe he would have questioned it then. There's no point to it now.]

Pay in coins. Resources for your work. Are you still in need of a consistent source of blood?