Juliana's cheeks flushed just the slightest amount when he mentioned the letter in the Prophet. Since Picardy's response she had come to regret it, but it had felt quite satisfying to write, at the time. She had the urge to ask what he thought of it in more detail, but bit it back. She'd already asked him, after all, and they'd talked about it at length in their letters. And, anyway, that wasn't really the point of the conversation.

"I don't think there are many academics that do that, in fairness," she pointed out lightly, more to buy herself time than anything else. He was shifting the conversation towards this bit of information she had teased him with, but she wasn't ready. Her heart was racing as she imagined all of the possible ways that he could react. He had a pint of beer, and she hadn't ordered one — she had never liked it, actually, but she wondered briefly if that might be a suitable time-buying strategy as well if she perked up suddenly and said she'd forgotten to get herself a drink and dashed away to the bar. But the conversation would still be waiting here for her when she returned, and she'd have to deal with the added burden of a beer she didn't want.

Her eyes sank down to her notebook again and she tapped one finger on the cover lightly. "I don't think Forfang publishes on other subjects — well, not academically, anyway," she amended hastily, with another slight flush to her cheeks that she attempted to hide by looking down at the table so the angle of her face might obscure it somewhat. "Because of the depth of the research. There was a critic that said that, right after the first piece was published. About how it must have taken years of research to collect so wide a group of subjects." She moved her hand to the edge of the notebook. "And I don't think that Forfang would be able to split attention between two topics and still have the same publishing quality."

She'd run out of things to stall with. It had happened more quickly than she'd anticipated, but now she was feeling as though if she was going to do this, the moment had arrived. Of course, she didn't have to do this — there were still a dozen ways to back out. But if she was...

Juliana opened the cover of her notebook, then began thumbing through the pages to the latest entry. The notes themselves were immaterial. The important bit was pinned to the inside cover of the notebook: a pencil sketch of willow blossoms. She'd allowed it to be visible for only a moment before her nerves had left her and she'd turned past it, and now she glanced across the table tentatively, trying to gauge whether or not he had seen.