"I'm entirely certain you'll have plenty of opportunity to play with the rest of the skull at your leisure, Teacher, given that I have yet to decide to be rid of it," Patience says blandly, gaze leveled on 'Sasha' without fear or concern — why should he feel either, given how many tens of millions of times he's used that title with the most profound respect? It's not like there's any reason he'd suspect God hadn't told this Ford fellow he was a teacher, surely, or that God was trying to be incognito, right?

(God has never succeeded at 'being incognito' within the Nine Houses; why would he try, in Trench, when it's so very clear that he isn't trying to be John, either?)

"That, about the dragons, sounds like the sort of professional-see-why-aey that every scientist-researcher who never wants someone to catch him out in a confident statement later proven wrong has given me for the past several thousand years, or so," which is both amused in tone and clearly an exaggeration (ha ha can you imagine?). "Did you want the bones? I really wasn't offering them to him."

So there, Sasha Buckler: now's your opportunity to pay for your crimes against humanity (or, well, this one, at least).

"How are these portals supposed to work, anyway?" he asks — patiently, knowing his cue to set things up for a delightedly long-winded passionate explanation about something that might or might not actually make a lick of sense to him.