"Not any harder than she needs to," Trever says. Because asking if a creature bites was always silly to him. Any animal would bite if it felt the need to, some just felt the need to do it more often than others.

Fortunately for Amy Veena is used to being bounced about. Trever has five younger cousins, the oldest about ten, and so have done much worse to her than just bouncing. She just flexes her claws gently when it gets to be a bit too bouncy. Beyond that she remains as a puddle.

"You have a seventh son in your family too?" Obviously seventh son means something to Trever from the way he says it. Like a title or something. "My mom has seven brothers. Thirteen of them altogether. The youngest two actually a few months younger than my older brother. But I know the competition thing. We might have different jobs but we're still very competitive in other ways."

He laughs. "With thirteen plus three kids living together, competition is kinda default - even if most of the kids are adults at the time."