[He folds his surprise behind a more neutral expression, even as her offer to teach him piques his surprise anew. One like him could study Grisha theory extensively, know all its twists and turns, and still come no closer to summoning a flicker of flame or healing so much as a paper cut by his touch.

This woman, then, is somebody worth knowing.]

I'm not unfamiliar, no, although I know it as the Small Science.

[This, however, seems something altogether different.]

I am what they would call otkazat’sya, I'm afraid. Thoroughly ordinary, you see.

[Nor had he ever particularly wished to be Grisha. As such, despite the way his eyebrows lean together as if he's sorry for something, he has no sorrow for what he lacks. What he enjoys is discovering ways to maximize the powers of the Grisha who serve him; he has little need to possess such power himself.]