The woman did not give into his cruel game. She made no moves to chase after him, he noted, fierce milky blue eyes squinting up at her as he assessed her with the same repugnance he would give to a rat. Or a duck. He did not particularly like ducks. She was on a mutual par with ducks to Ira at the moment. Not even his taunting seemed to spurn any sort of physical reaction that she was going to come after him from her. Ears lifted to rest at half mast atop his skull as he considered what this meant. Rather, what he thought that this meant. Her lack of reaction and the according action when he had called her on her threat, served to prove to Ira a simple fact. In that moment, Ira considered her one of those creatures that was “all talk and no bite”. She had made a threat to him and failed to carry through with it - for he was still here, wasn’t he? He had challenged her, yes, because he wasn’t just going to stand there and allow her to touch a hair on him. If she wanted to escort him away, it would have to be done by force. Other children were obedient (for the most part), the other children at Red Keep would have ran away from her when she had first spoken.
Ira hadn’t ever been like the other children at Red Keep. He was a princeling. He feared no one. He got what he wanted. It was as simple (and possibly deluded) as that.
"Is that sssso?" Ira hissed at her, briefly trying out the hissing way in which Jinx talked, before he decided that it didn’t hold quite the same darkness when he did it as Jinx accomplished when she spoke. Ira wasn’t terrified of her, in fact it was quite the opposite, he was amused. Given his previous experience with her and her threats, he was confident she wouldn’t follow through with it, even if he did not have Jinx as a shield. Of course, she very might well have; but that didn’t matter. "I am no ordinary pup," Ira corrected her calmly, though his nostrils flared ever so slightly. "I am a Princeling and you…you," The child repeated ‘you’ in a softer, gentler tone. "Are nothing more than an ant under my paw." Ira could play the game of insults just as well as she could.