It was hard for Ida to resist her smirk as Cliff went on and on explaining what he was doing in Knockturn Alley, almost as if her question made him nervous. A noticeable contrast from the intruder on her property who scarcely wanted to tell her his name. The explanation felt unmistakably genuine, too – the kind of thing that’s almost too dumb to make up. Maybe one day she’ll get to meet this Meena girl, who sounded like a spitfire. (An idea that came to Ida completely divorced from the reality of what that would entail - like a planned outing, or a visit to Cliff’s home one day.)

“If you couldn’t find the gloves I might have some spare anti-venom ones back home that might fit her,” Ida offered with a shrug back. An open invitation for him to let her know – although, she supposed now there was the small detail that she didn’t really live there anymore. The detail felt like a weird thing to volunteer to him, though. Why would it matter to Cliff anyway, where she lived? Probably a better thing that the criminal couldn’t track her down properly, right?

“Well…,” she hummed distractedly, eyes still tracing each unique ruin. Were there different ruins on the top versus the bottom? This was really quite sophisticated. “If you can find a buyer who isn’t the man you stole it from, it could be valuable enough to try and sell…” It didn’t make a lick of a difference to Ida, really, who the rightful owner of this was. Dark objects beget dark behavior in the first place. Besides this, she didn’t think it was much of a stretch to assume Cliff could put the money to better use than an ornery shopkeeper of toxins. With a small frown, it occurred to Ida that Cliff really had a habit of making some of the worst enemies. Between the constables and now this poison expert, Cliff might want to consider laying low or wearing some big spooky cloak or something. He stuck out like a sore thumb.

Though before Ida could voice her concern, she caught his offhand comment. Question? No, it seemed like a compliment, actually. Ida shot him a quick look as though to reassure herself it was still the same person, but he wasn’t looking at her. It was for the better then, since her cheeks definitely turned a twinge red, and she could do without him teasing her for it.

As quickly as the quiet moment sprang up between them, however, Cliff went on and snapped it in half. Before she knew it he was grinning like an idiot again, and knocking on her head and making her eyes roll again.

“Pfft,” the woman finally dropped her hand and stepped to dodge more of his knocking. “Don’t worry, fortunately I have enough brains for the both of us,” she tried to stuff her residual embarrassment behind an indifferent sniff that wrinkled the bridge of her nose. “And I wasn’t ogling, mind you, I was appraising the value of your dark object.” A very important distinction. Expression turned thoughtful then, as she gave slightly more serious thought to his question.

“I’m still not sure if it’s a good idea to burn it… What if the flame hypnotizes you? You might singe your eyebrows off,” She offered the advice as sagely as she might talk to her little brother about cauldron fire safety, but a laugh snuck up on her and broke her seriousness. Ah, stupid hall of mirrors… She’s been to dozens of these types of mazes before. The only way to get over something, sometimes, might be to go through it.

“I suppose you can take care of breaking in, then. And as usual, I’ll take care of breaking out.”

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