"Ah," He says. "That bad, huh?" He doesn't clarify what's bad, whether the rules her clan enforces or whatever terrible experience they've had with mages. It doesn't matter much.

"Don't worry, I love mi familia but I had already been staying out of that stuff as much as I could." As an afterthought, he adds, "I'm sorry if I offended you. You seemed different than that to me but that's really no excuse to run my mouth."