"No."
Lucavion's expression barely changed. "That was quick."
"You asked for my office without naming what you intend to do with it."
"I'm getting there."
"You should have begun there."
Elias drew the amended form back toward himself, not far, just enough that the gesture separated the one thing they had actually agreed to from the one thing they had not. Lucavion did not get to treat the Council presidency as another blank field to fill in later.
Protection from discipline. Suppression of evidence. Interference with a faculty authority he had no standing to overrule. Opposition to some other political office, with the Council's name spent on it. A public endorsement of something he had never examined. Authority did not sit still once it left his hands. It became whatever the direction it was pointed made of it, and Lucavion had asked him to commit to the pointing before naming the direction.
"Fine," Lucavion said.
Elias let the word sit.
