"Profligate? Perhaps." Dorian squares up the book in front of him, and then carefully opens it to a random page in the middle. The handwriting is crabbed, in a runic-looking script, and tiny. Very tiny.

"It's over two thousand years of inbreeding, internecine conflict, murder, and assorted eugenical fuckery, however, so perhaps it's a true miracle it isn't three times as long." Dorian taps the page. "House Erasthenes. One I'll be examining quite closely -- but not without a bottle of wine or three."

The way he speaks, it's clear he loves him some SAT words. Like tiny throwing stars, aimed at the throat of everything loathsome about his homeland.