Brannon frowned at the request. How long could that stack of tedious paperwork really take to assemble? But he had no answer, because he had never worked in the dueling commission and didn’t know, really, what they did on a day-to-day basis when there wasn’t a tournament being put on. He had the vague impression that their office was merely a collection of misguided, over-pompous idiots, so maybe it took them weeks to accomplish what his office could have done in a few days. On the other hand, that was probably just his impression of Barnabas Skeeter leaking in to all of his coworkers, past, present, and future.

He’d been lingering around the office waiting just for that stack of paperwork, but he couldn’t very well just say that to a young man who was still getting his feet wet in the Ministry; Brannon wouldn’t want him to think that this sort of just-killing-time behavior was usual or acceptable. And, at the end of the day, if he went home now instead of at ten this morning, it wouldn’t be much of a loss. At least he’d been present to prevent his desk from going up in smoke.

Actually, now that he thought about it, he’d probably have to spend the rest of the workday righting his desk, and searching down the source of the fire. So he didn’t particularly need any additional paperwork to sort through.

“Very well,” he decided. “Though we’ve a committee meeting on Monday, and spell trials Tuesday, so if you deliver it next week you can’t expect it back until Thursday at least.”