Alex can't help but smile a little at the answer- when she'd said 'research' his mind had filled in some academic field, but it made sense. And he stops to think for a second, that were he at home, this would normally be where he dove into the dry, boring tones of Dr. Alexander Preston, making it clear that there was nothing remotely interesting about him or his field of study. Pay no attention to the basilisks behind the secret locked door in the reptile house. Or the moderately spooky house nestled in the suburbs outside the city where only one out of four of its residents are technically human.

He's not really sure what it says about how used to this place he's getting that there's no inclination towards that.

"I was new enough when we met the first time that I still thought I'd been kidnapped by faeries," he admits. "In my defense, that is the sort of thing my family has a history of," he adds, with the sort of wryness that suggests he knows exactly how ridiculous it sounds.