"You know," he says with a little smile, "Mealworms and other beetle grubs are common foods in the Underdark. We used to eat bhaerulb for breakfast during the week before we went into the mines."

"But I suppose that doesn't help you. Even if we had grubs here, they don't exactly have blood in them."

He raises the flask he's been mixing ingredients in up to the light, studying the reaction for a long moment. When he sets it down, he sighs and looks over at Astarion. "Damn it. We might need everyone who can fight, at any moment, and you can't exactly go asking the children for a bite, can you."

That leaves one obvious choice, in this very room, and it's not the cat. "If I do it, will you promise to help find Wulbren?"