This demon was refined, and refinement was the trap.
She was a spirit of some cultivated mountain, and when she took she did not throw him in a cage or hang him over a fire. She carried him to a beautiful residence, dressed him in fine robes, and set about courting him — not the crude force of the scorpion, but poetry recited at evening, a zither played in the fog, wine and conversation and the patient, civilised campaign of a cultured being who has decided she wants this particular man and intends to win him properly.
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