Isabella pats Sadde on the head and holds one finger to her lips.

Waffles. Waffles waffles. Scritches.

Waffles waffles. In silence.

He shrugs and smiles.

"You can talk, pet, just don't tease Alex."

He thinks about it, opens his mouth, closes it, then opens it again to say, "Alright." Then, to Alex: "Not exactly the most intellectually inspiring of jobs, but it pays the bills and puts the food on the table, plus I get to spend a lot of time around books and there's enough downtime to practice magic."

"You have to pay for the food here?"

"No, I was being dramatic."

"What bills do you even have?"

"Well, I have to buy clothes, and sometimes I want to buy my dom cute tiny cacti and find myself without enough pocket money to do so."

"You wanted to buy me a cactus?"

"Yes! They were adorable!"

"You're adorable."

"How is your entire life all about Bella you have been dating for like a week."

"My entire life isn't all about Isabella! It's all about books and magic and music and Isabella! And it's been more like two weeks."

Snort.

"I'm very absorbing."

"Pfft."

"There'll also be classes starting today!"

"What're you taking?"

"Econ and math and history and scientific literacy."

"Little hard-subjects heavy."

Shrug. "I wanna get history and scientific literacy out of the way early, and the other two are fun."