"Tara, we've already discussed this, and besides, I'm quite busy with--" Gale starts to say at the sound of the door opening, cutting himself short once he recognizes the sound of human footfalls. His head snaps up, wide eyed, and he doesn't immediately say anything. His eyes are also red, but from the looks of things on the bed, it may be at least in part from not blinking enough. All the folios she gave him are open, with scraps of paper shoved in between a number of pages, either notes or just to mark pages. There are other papers all over the bed, covered in Gale's handwriting. Some attempt had been made to shuffle them into piles, but he abandoned it along the way. There are a couple of books that Harley didn't give him also open on the bed, perhaps for him to cross reference.

"You're brilliant," he says matter of factly. It's not a flattering attempt to win back her favor, it's just a statement of fact m Reading what she wrote just made him even more certain than he was before. "Blackstaff was foolish to lose you. Despite being intellectuals, wizards are often fools." Present company included. "You've been crying... because of me." Apparently, he's going to keep making obvious statements. "So it seems more appropriate that I should have earned that particular title."