[Her smile comes a little easier this time around as more of that tension dissipates.]

I feel the same.

[Regardless of where they go from here, Ilsa doesn't see that changing any time soon. Were it anyone else who she had the same run-in with at the masquerade, she doesn't think it would go over quite as well. Honestly, it wouldn't go over at all—if she'd ever found out who it was after the fact, he would have been a dead man, but with Eustace... somehow, it's different.

The vast amount of respect that she similarly holds for him reminds her that he would never cross a line with her, and that whatever it means to him—or her, for that matter—he wouldn't ever go so far as to throw it away. Clearly it meant something to the both of them...]

You are my oldest friend and closest colleague. I don't intend for that to change just because Society doesn't exist here. I hope you know that.

[A pause, and Ilsa clicks her tongue, but her smile doesn't fade. It only shifts to something more teasing.]

However. If you speak of this to anyone, I may have to kill you.