Kos looked at the extended hand as if he were being presented with a withered monkeys paw, or some darkly inscribed tome mouldering at the edges from the accumulated weight of time itself – her hand seemingly little more than a curio to him as he looked it over once, let his eyes wander up to the girls face, and then drop back down to the hand again. With a shrug of his somewhat narrow shoulders he extended his own hand – taking hers within his palm, something cold and metallic pressing against her palm for a moment, shifting almost unperceivably against her flesh as he tightened his hold upon her hand. It was not an uncomfortably strong grip, but a firm one none the less – much like the sort one would expect to find upon successfully negotiating a deal at market with a particularly shrewd businessman . ‘And that, my dear, is where the difference lies’ he said after a time – his penetrating gaze locked firmly upon her ‘for you see, should I disappoint you it really is of little consequence. But, should you disappoint me… well, we will cross that bridge when we come to it, hmm?’ he said with a grin that would have been considerably more at home upon the muzzle of a wolf, finally letting go of her hand so show his signet ring had been flipped over so that its surface was pressing against her palm. For a moment there was the outline of a small hunched over gargoyle upon her skin – like a birthmark she never knew she had, and then it was gone.<br/><br/>‘You might want to avoid wandering the gardens on your own for the immediate future – there are some things that are best left unspoken of both growing and living within the grounds that might take rather unkindly to your presence before you have proven your ability to master them. And by might, I mean should you not want to find yourself coming to a sticky end that I will no doubt be either too busy or just un-inclined to save you from. He spoke in an even voice, as if he was doing little more than taking a paying tourist on a sightseeing trip of some great tourist trap – even going as far to gesture, albeit in a rather vague manner, in the direction of some of the more exotic looking plants that now no doubt looked as if they were coiled ready to strike at any moment.<br/><br/>‘You also might wish to retrieve your luggage before my two soon to be garden ornaments decide to take it upon themselves to rend it to pieces’ he added as an after thought – gesturing back towards the two gargoyles that even now leered down at the girls trunk in a way that suggested they would not be adverse to returning the object to its component parts were they given even a moment alone with it. ‘Be quick now though – I don’t have all day to stand around in the gardens, I have a visitor scheduled later and I suppose I should find you a room of some sorts before then. It would, after all, be the kind thing to do would it not?’