Why does he feel like he's just signed his soul off? He nods and follows after her as she strides away.

The place she leads him to isn't her room in the guild building; rather, it's a small old building one block away in the direction of the city walls. It's dark by then but the rain's mostly let up, and she walks briskly enough that there isn't really enough time for the cold to set in before they're greeted by a blast of warm enchanted air when she opens the door.

She unclasps the neck of her robe and throws it in the vague direction of a coat rack then leads the way further inside.

"I'd have expected you to treat your clothes better," he says, as by now he has noticed that actually Evelin's robes do look really well-made and well-tailored. The style is completely different from Wizard Mara's but in a sense they're more reminiscent of them then Astrid's were.

"They were made to withstand being ravaged by an aevys, being a little rough with them won't register."

It's still far too dark in here, though, so he lights a small mage light and—

It doesn't help that much, but that's because the place is cluttered with fabrics hanging from hangers everywhere, reams of different types and textures and colours in a cluttered mess. Evelin herself is riffling through them mostly by touch, occasionally leaving a small enchanted marker here and there to remind her to go back to a selection. 

"Do you want to show off your balls? I know I said we could make it work but in my professional opinion—"

"Don't worry about it," he says, shutting the door behind himself. "I don't have a very strong opinion other than, uh, as you guessed, wanting to look hot."

"That's a given, what do you take me for?"

"I don't know, I met you ten minutes ago when you tried to look up my skirt."

"I didn't try. ...but fine, point taken. I'm Evelin, and I'm going to become Rune-Midgard's foremost expert on enchanted garments and number one fashion setter amongst the normies."

"Ambitious. So you're at the Guild to study enchantment?"

"Partly. I'd also been hoping to run into you."

"Me."

"Or someone like you—oh there you are you son of a bitch," she says, snatching a long pane of thick grey fabric and throwing it over one shoulder. "Someone like you, who'd agree to be my experimental subject. Mages are all so tame and boring, they just want to be a bundle of fabric that sets things on fire, but that's the challenge that I wanted because if I can make a mage look good then I can do anything!"

"Wouldn't it be a lot more impressive if you experimented on someone who looks less good than me then?"

She pushes the fabrics out of the way so she can look at him and raise an eyebrow.

"Oh come on, am I meant to demur some more? I'm hot, that's why you fixated on me."

She buries herself in fabrics again. "Not just that. But, yes, you'll make my job easier. It's a confluence of reasons! And I gotta get my name out there. If anyone asks where you got what you're wearing you'll send them my way. And of course that'll be a lot more valuable once you see just how good my stuff is at holding enchantments, but that's for later. I'm going to set the trend for wizards all over the realm."

"Well I'm glad I dithered so long, then, wouldn't have wanted you to pass me by as yet another bundle of fabric who sets things on fire."

"It was a stroke of fate, yes, yes." She pushes the fabrics away, but by now she has enough stuff hanging off her shoulder that she's barely visible under it. "Go over there and strip."

"Naked?"

"If you were going to be bashful you should've worn undergarments."

He can't really argue with that.

She dumps a pile of stuff almost as tall as she is next to him then vanishes into another row of fabrics before emerging with measuring tape in hand.

Then she pauses. "Why are the lights off?"

"They were never on."