He’d girded himself for the worst, so it’s actually yet another relief, that the hammer lands and it is in fact less than he expected but not what he feared. And then his expression takes on the abstracted look of someone trying to do some very quick math. Divide by half, add seven?

Stephen’s pause goes on a little too long. Not because he’s still agonising over her age, but because now he’s frankly struggling to pin down his own. He and Cosima have bonded over how hard it was to reckon these things.

“It’s hard to tell,” he admits, “between the vanishing for five years and then crossing over here and the timelines don’t really line up. But I was forty-two when I sort-of-died, and then came back the same age, and Thedas wasn’t all that long after. So I’ve generally assumed I turned forty-three here.”

He does the math. They’re in the clear.

Then, before he can think any better of this irrational absurd kneejerk question, “Is that alright? I mean, I’m fine with it if you are—”