Lenore's lips part a little as he speaks, brow furrowing, because something about what he's saying doesn't make sense to her, but she isn't immediately sure what it is that sits wrong. Her brain is ticking that over when she gets to his question, and she shakes her head in reply. "Not necessarily. Styria's further to the west, so your interests seem more immediate than ours, on that specific topic."

Biting down carefully on her lower lip, Lenore pins down what's sticking in her mind. He speaks of the Ottomans like it's a human expansion. Lenore finds she's made the assumption that there's vampiric involvement. So she has to take a moment to re-evaluate her own perspective on the situation. Is there specific evidence to suggest vampiric involvement? No, not that she can think of. She hadn't even consciously realized that she'd made this assumption until something he said contradicted it. Then, is this a matter of her gut instincts picking up on something? Or has she mistakenly gotten the idea in her head from some false association, connecting two unconnected topics--vampires and the Ottomans.

Gut instinct, she decides. But that's a difficult thing to pitch to Dracula without evidence.

"What if it isn't mere human rabble, my lord?" she asks softly, letting him consider the implications and whether there's a possibility there before they pursue the topic further. If he is firmly certain that it's only a human problem, then she wants to hear that reassurance.