She really does like him.
"I was born in Corentyn. It's a city on the same coast as Ostenso, but pretty far, five hundred miles or so, right where the Inner Sea opens up into the ocean. My father is a merchant; he works out what cargo will be sent in his ships to other cities, and what they'll trade for there, and he sells foreign goods to merchants in Corentyn and sells Chelish goods far away. I have a half-brother who's going to take over the business from him someday. That's how it's normally done; there's a lot of accumulated expertise no one's written down, so you teach your children. Teach your sons, until pretty recently. My mother is a wizard and when she met my father was doing odd wizard work, a step up from laundry - daily cooling spells for people who don't like the summer heat, Comprehend Languages for merchants, that kind of thing.
When I was young there was a civil war, and that's when the Queen signed her compact with Hell and formed modern Cheliax, though I don't remember much about it, except that the ships were impressed for moving soldiers around and my father was very annoyed about it, and parts of the city where we didn't live got destroyed. My mother kept me home and tried to teach me magic. After the war the church opened up a school for wizards in Corentyn and my mother got a job as a teacher there and I tested in, and did very well, and when I graduated was encouraged to enlist in the Chelish army and go fight at the Worldwound, because it'd be best for my growth as a wizard and paid very generously and was also necessary to prevent the destruction of the world, which even Evil people care about typically. So I enlisted, and I've served six years now, with a year off in between three-year terms. I planned to stay until I hit fourth circle, because I want to be fourth-circle, and I knew in my heart I might actually stay until I hit fifth, because then you can Teleport, and then I was going to open a magic shop in Corentyn and have kids and be rich."