Emmaline's face split into a broad grin. As usual everyone at the gathering had taken it as a matter of course that women randomly fainted. There was some truth to the stereotype, though usually it was the result of drink or being laced too tightly into a corset. Emmaline lifted a bottle of rum to her lips and drank, given her activities at the ball she had missed most of the free drinking and eating, in fact she probably shouldn't be drinking at all considering she hadn't eaten anything since breakfast time, but her mood was good and this rum was of the highest quality smooth and spiced.

Rather than responding she reached into her bodice and removed the bracelet she had stolen from the collection. To her shock, rather than being made of dark polished wood, the snake was now made of gold, gleaming in the light of the torches which lit the street. Emmaline stared at it in shock. It was preciesly as it had been, every detail exact save for the changed material and the fact that eyes appeared to be tiny emeralds.

"Something about it..." she began, when suddenly one of the eyes blinked. It wasn't a glitter of the stone, the eyelids actually closed.

"Shiz!" Emmaline yelped and started back, dropping both the bracelet and her bottle of liquor. Faster than she could follow the braclet seemed to whip and curl in the air, elongating as it did so, uncoiling and striking downwards. The things mouth caught the neck of the bottle while its tail curled around Emmaline's forearm, arresting the fall of the thick glass bottle. Gone were the glittering golden scales to be replaced by what looked for all the world like a real live three foot long cobra. Emmaline stared at the snake in shock as it lifted the bottle back into her nerveless fingers. Almost against her will her fingers closed to hold the bottle, then, without any apparent concern the serpent curled itself several time around her forearm and shimmered into inanimate gold once more.