Kaien handled it the way he handled everything: calmly and immediately.
"Lord Baek," he said, "take the decree and leave through the kitchen. Now, before he reports back."
"I'm not going to —"
"The decree is what matters. If something happens to us, it still needs to reach the Ministry." Kaien held the old man's gaze. "You know I'm right."
A pause. The kind that contained an entire argument and its resolution.
"The kitchen door lets out to the alley behind the dye shop," Lord Baek said. "There's a covered passage that connects to Magistrate Row. Fifteen minutes on foot to the Ministry gates." He picked up the document case. Then he looked at us with the expression of a man who had been doing difficult things for a very long time and had learned to do them without showing how much they cost him. "Don't die."
"Working on it," Ren said.
Lord Baek left through the kitchen.
