All things told, they’re sort-of-better circumstances than the last time Strange sat down for a drink with Yseult. Today he joins her while hauling his own stack of work-related reading to do; some things never changed, and it was hard to turn off that perpetually-ticking part of his brain which rarely relaxed fully, and was almost always thinking about the next task, and the next, and the next.

He hauls up his own folding chair and settles in, glancing at the magical cold steaming off the Scoutmaster’s glass with barely-disguised envy. He does flip through his books and waits, however, for the woman to eventually stir and readjust her hat and straighten to reach for her drink again.

“How do I get some of those?” he asks, voice arch as always. “What are they, frost runes embedded in whiskey stones? My god, I should’ve gone into boutique enchantment instead of all this.”