It could be worse, Gabe told himself. He could have had to track William down in the row of the restricted section where he'd hurt him the first time. It could have been much worse; he could have had to find him in his rooms. (Oh hey, you still have that candlestick, the blood came off it fine, isn't that nice.)
No, never that bad. Gabe would've gone back downstairs and written explanatory notes until his hand cramped rather than that.
So facing William here, like so many times before, wasn't so bad really. At least when William looked down, it wasn't with one of those soft, secret smiles. That would be...
Well, Gabe didn't quite know what that would be, and it was much easier (and safer) to think about impossible problems of pigmentation and binding wards to liquid form. "So," he said, as he hadn't in front of Nate, because if William was going to be all round-the-bush about it, two could play at that game (and, ok, it had taken him a couple of rounds of back-and-forth to realise). "You're trying to tattoo protective magic. I'd been thinking the biggest problem with biological warding was the quick dissipation, but turns out that's just a sympton of the definition of area-of-effect issue."
He flipped the book open - quickly - and pulled out the pages of the letter. Whoops, letters. William's (much shorter) one Gabe shoved in his back pocket with a shrug, handing over the others with, "Probably quicker if you read. You'll have questions." It all left the book open for a bit, though Gabe closed it again smartly once he had a hand free.