"Thanks, we also own the house next door, but only Mary Jane and her family use it."

He turns the lights down in the basement. There are boxes, laundry machinery, pipes and other basement typical stuff. There is also a table with various  mechanical components.

"Those are your clockwork things?"

"Yeah, I did some tinkering with literal clocks and custom music boxes. Now I am trying to make some mechanism that move in certain ways, like an car that will follow the same path. I hope I will eventually get good enough to build a robot that does something like play an instrument."

"Can clocks change how they move moment to moment? Like, go fast for ten seconds, then slow, then medium? That's the kind of thing you'll need for this, right?"

"Yeah. There are multiple ways to do that." He picks a clockwork and opens it to show the relevant bits and how the process works. "It's kinda complicated to figure out how to make the change of speed start and end how you want it."

He watches intently. "Cooool. Clever mechanical trickery."

"Thank you! I hope I will get more stuff to work with for my birthday, but I don't know if I want more magic stuff or radio bits, I could use those to control things from a distance..."

"My first instinct is to say that magic is automatically better, but, like, the radio is actually pretty cool too. There's so much to learn out there. It's great."

"Magic is harder to come by. Or copy. But it's really cool when you combine both."

"I can see that. I'm already thinking up ideas... I bet I could make an eternal mainspring when I'm a bit older... I need to read a book on electricity."

"What sort of book? I have some."

"Textbooks I guess?"

He has those. Basics Principles For The Electric Engineer, Electrical Engineering 101, the Applied Electrical Principles and the like. They appear to be for a college-level audience, but Adam wrote notes.

"Cool. I should probably read them later though, not when you're being all hospitable and showing me stuff."

"Fair enough." Pause. "Speaking of hospitable, do you want something? Cookies? Juice?"

"Well, I won't turn down free snacks. Juice sounds nice. Thanks!"

In that case, Adam will bring a large plate of cookies (maybe a bit too large for just two boys) and two glasses of apple juice.

Nico has peered at clockworks enough to make guesses about how this or that one works! He asks Adam if his guesses are correct.

 Adam points out Nico's mistakes without making a big deal and explaining how it actually works. Some of the mistakes are entirely because part of the machinery was literally hidden, or (in one case) relied in small magic.

This is pretty fun!

Which is why Adam does it.

Eventually, they start hearing sounds from upstairs. People arriving.

Nico won't suggest going and saying hi if Adam doesn't.

Stephen the color-changing dad pokes his head in the basement. Sees that they are apparently alright. "Don't forget to clean after once you're done, Adam." He says with a nod at the cookies. "Do you two need anything?"

"Not particularly! All the tech here is interesting! Thanks for having me over!"

"Great. We told the ship's staff that your parents can pick you up when they want to. So, keep having fun."