"I'm here only for a few hours anyway," Dean said, as he was there to take the exams and return to the palace.
Sylvia made a soft sound that suggested she had heard the words and rejected the optimism inside them on principle.
"That has never once protected you from university politics."
"It's not politics," Dean said. "It's administration with better shoes."
Sylvia adjusted the sleeve of her coat and glanced toward the long eastern corridor ahead, where the examination halls began. "That is an objectively worse sentence."
Dean ignored her and kept walking.
