Zafira was waiting at the end of the corridor with her arms folded, and she had clearly been standing there a while. Zafira looked him over once. "Well?"
"I'm free."
"That sounded convincing."
"It comes with conditions."
They found out what that meant before they made it out of the administrative wing. A clerk from Ithanne's office stopped Trafalgar at the first staircase and asked where he was going. He wanted an address, an expected return time and the names of anyone leaving with him.
Trafalgar gave him all three. Then the clerk led them back into a small office and wrote everything into a ledger that already had Trafalgar's name at the top of the page.
By the time they were allowed to leave, getting two streets away had taken twenty-five minutes, and twenty of those had been paperwork. Zafira glanced back toward the office as they started down the stairs.
"They're doing that every time you leave a room?"
"Probably for weeks."
"That'll drive you insane."
