Nicola has had more charming first impressions than the cocky and implying his entire city lacks imagination. But he's also had less charming first impressions, and made them himself, so he only raises his eyebrows and tips his head as if giving this some thought.

What he's actually giving thought to is her contemplation of him. What her options here must be. The worrying fact that she has not already taken pity and gone first.

Maybe he should be embarrassed, about the hesitation, but he isn't. He has been very calm about meeting more mages in a single day than he'd ever encountered in his life. Extremely relaxed and reasonable about his roommate options being exclusively mages, too, plus one rifter. He didn't gawp at the griffons. He has, by his calculations, earned some hesitation over stepping through what is supposed to be glass into an alternate dimension.

"Has anyone ever gone in and never come back?"