Julius explains, and Ness is silent, attentive, allowing him to recount his experience without interruption or distraction. She tries to put herself in that position, imagines leaving Candlekeep to fight in a war only to return and find many of the people she'd known her whole life dead, or traitors and then dead.

It's not so unfamiliar a story, really.

"Thank you, Seneschal. For trusting me with that story."

For a second, it seems that Ness might leave it there, finish excusing herself from his office and return to her own. The silence that follows rests, considering.

"Five years ago, practicioners of evil magics attacked my home," she says eventually, a far-away look in her eyes. "They had infiltrated the ranks of our monks and installed themselves in positions of power, and we were not prepared for their betrayal. My mentor died in that attack. Many of the monks and scribes I'd known my whole life died. Our Keeper... "

She takes a shaky breath, and refocuses. This is, in the short scheme of her life so far, an old wound. The ripples of these losses can't even reach her here.

"There are some forms of magic I cannot abide, as a result. I'm only fortunate that they don't exist here. So, Sir, all this to say... I understand, and I'm sorry to have put you in this position. "