"My dog?" Savvina looked up. She'd thought he was leaving but he was stopped at the door. She knew, again, this was not a kindness. Maybe a dog would have more to say to Bagnold than she could. She stepped away from the wall to face him fully again, arms crossed over her chest, toes in the sand.

"He is tawny. Sooty muzzle, Pointy ears. Maybe fifteen kilos. He is called Skýlos and he likes cheese."

All dogs like cheese. She smiled a little.

"He would maybe go to the market," she shrugged. "There is a small deli by the park. They know him there. Yes, maybe he'd go to the deli."

London wasn't a safe place for a stray dog, but everybody loved Skýlos. He was charming and his ears just begged for a scratch. Maybe the werewolf hunters would find him for her. Maybe he was warm somewhere with a clue in his collar. One golden dog would be harder to find than a werewolf but maybe still they would. A good daydream for the beach.

"Or the boating lake. He would chase the ducks if I let him."

Savvina fell silent, then. She had no more to ask of Kurby Bagnold, and nothing more to offer. The stories about his callousness may yet prove true, but for Savvina he'd been princely enough.

Kurby silently processed the information, filing the description away.  He knew that Li had already gone looking for the dog once, but he hadn't heard whether or not she and Fenneken had successfully found Skýlos.  That was one last piece to follow up on.

Locating a lost dog in London felt a bit like trying to find the Golden Snitch on a Quidditch field the size of Hogwarts, but it couldn't hurt to try.  After all, they already played at being dog catchers for three nights out of every month.  There was no reason why they couldn't try their hands at it on some of the other days.

He glanced at the werewolf one last time, but he wasn't willing to make promises that he couldn't keep.  Overhead, the false sky was still dark and full of stars; sunrise was still hours away.  But that just meant he'd have a couple of hours to start tackling his other work and looking into these new leads before the others began to trickle into the office.

Without another word, he activated the door that would lead him back into the stark hallways of Level Four.  A moment later, he was stepping through it, leaving the unnaturally silent shoreline, with its lukewarm sand and gently rolling waves, for her alone.