Ed had grown used to people watching, and although some would stop and ask about it not everyone did. He'd gotten so used to the lingering presence of a bystander in crowd that they no longer struck him as odd and he barely noticed that he had a spectator.

The sound of a voice does get his attention though, and he stands from where he'd knelt to mend another broken piece of the establishment. Some of this was so easy, just put the pieces back together that had crumbled on the spot - but he knew that parts of the damaged area had been swept up in the cleaning efforts and that made his job harder. He tried not to be too bitter about it when he knew people were just trying to help in their own way, so when he turns to answer the question golden eyes fall on her trash bag before anything else.

"It is." He might sound a little guarded, forgive him Mantis, enough people have tried to shove the concept that alchemy is magic down his throat that this conversation rarely starts well. "On my world it's a science that reconstructs matter, so fixing up this broken stuff's pretty easy." Ed's watching her carefully as he slips science in there as if waiting to be countered, he doesn't place right away why he gets a sense of familiarity from her - he'd yet to figure out anyone at the Masquerade that he hadn't already known unless they gave themselves away.

This is usually when the other person tries to correct him, so he's ready for it.