He can see the way that chills her. No regret forms in his expression, just a last evaluating look, as if it to try to separate panic from guilt, or whatever other thing that has her voice skip, has her hold herself so still.

"It'll be alright," Marcus tells her, an altered echo, and no less true now than it was a moment ago. It isn't nothing, no, but it isn't everything.

And he'll leave her be. In his office, up in the central tower, there is some paperwork he needs seeing to while he waits. There is the faint expectation that she might run, now, and affording her the opportunity had seemed like the correct maneuver, but then, perhaps there'd been a better way to inspire some trust. That he comes up short on how he might have done so doesn't dismiss the thought.

It's hard to reconcile with a mage who mightn't trust their own kind. But then, an apostate, one who never knew herself to be one for a substantial portion of her life—

Well, that's different.

She will find his door unlatched and cracked open, lamp light within tinged with cigarette smoke.