Better than Astarion, of course, whose entire face remains fully obscured from top to bottom until they've both entered the room— and snapped the bolt back into place— where he finally yanks a distinctly avian beak mask free, exposing a tangle of silver curls and the pointed tips of his own white ears (and hollow red eyes, reflective when he catches the dim light wrong).

"No, you? A novice in the realm of love?" He gasps out in matching form, fitting her with a sidelong glance while moving to thumb through a nearby wall of shelved books and scrolls— sprawling room seeming more half-living space than proper study, but clues come in all shapes and sizes, and from all places, so.

On they search.

"I don't believe it for a second, beautiful creature that you are. Surely someone must've struck your heart at least once."

...or vice versa.