[He takes the tea with a smile and no evident problem with staying as long as is necessary (though why would he, when she has so artfully arranged the menu, the venue, the seating?) There is some relief, just-perceptibly visible, when she confirms that Araceli isn't a mage. Whatever these carefully-unspecified skills of hers are, they must surely be less stigmatized or fraught with tension than magic. Three rifters in the office would be politically inadvisable; three mages would be unforgivable.

He has not brought up his own vastly limited experience with anything outside the confines of a Circle tower. Why create second thoughts where there are none? If she thinks him knowledgeable enough for the position, then he'll just smile, nod, accept, and do whatever he needs to do to become sufficiently knowledgeable after the fact. It had worked fine with the whole 'dating the first dwarf he's ever spoken more than a sentence to' thing, until it hadn't.

The work itself may not be glamorous, but having his own half of an office is the most luxury he's been afforded since the Circles fell, and he'll gladly take it. And he'll get to indulge his curiosity about another rifter into the bargain. But more importantly than anything, it's a place to start. That's all he needs.]

It is a shame you never got to see the College of Magi before the Chantry disbanded it. [But even among the Libertarians, there's nobody in Thedas who can wait, waste paper or conduct research like a Circle mage. For the first time since he left that Maker-forsaken tower, there's a chance that the skills he developed there might actually have an application to something still useful. It's more than he'd dared hope.]

If there's one thing I can do, Madame, it's give an opinion. I'd be honored to be a party to all of this.