"Yeah, around that long." Ilias replied.

"She really rebounded." he said.

The two then waited for a few minutes, before Evan stood up a little straighter.

"...ow." he mumbled.

"Feel better?" Ilias asked.

"Considerably." Evan commented.

"Ilias Nicolo." Ilias then said, extending a hand.

"Evan Kiczys." Evan responded, accepting it... and becoming a little shocked when a few snakes popped out from beneath Ilias' hair.

"Oh, thank you." Ilias said, letting go of Evan's hand and accepting the file.

Once he did, one of the snakes extended itself a little further, darting its tongue out at Evan. He then seemed to look over towards Kiah, then to Evan, then back to Kiah, tilting its head slightly.

"Heh." Ilias chuckled.

"Guess your mana's similar, but juuuust different enough to confuse her." he commented.

"She's not sure what to make of it."

"Cousins." Ilias said to the one snake.

"Extend your hand out, palm up." he then told Evan.

Evan slowly did so, and the one snake darted her tongue out slightly, getting closer and closer... before resting her head on Evan's fingers.

"There we go." Ilias said.

"She likes me?" Evan asked.

"Yep." Ilias chuckled.

The snake withdrew into Ilias' hair, as Evan looked at Kiah as she said what she did. When she asked Ilias her question, the man thought about it for a moment, before snapping his fingers.

"Ah!" he exclaimed.

"I think we have 3 or 4 in the cabinet in room 3." he told her. "I can go get one if you like." he offered. "It's on the way to my office, so I can get it while I'm dropping off the file." he reasoned.

"Office?" Evan asked.

"Oh, so you're in charge here?" he asked Ilias.

"..." Ilias was stunned silent for a moment, before he almost doubled over in laughter.

"Of course." Ilias responded.

"Back in a few." he said, walking off, still roaring with laughter for a few seconds, but it quickly died down to a persistent chuckle.

"..." Evan was silent for a moment, and then looked at Kiah.

"Oh, all right." he said.

"Then... uh, who IS?" he asked.

"Does it have to do with why my question was so gosh-darned hilarious?" he asked further.

Evan... almost fell over when he heard that.

"Y-you're the head of this entire department!?" he exclaimed.

"W-wow!" he said.

"That's... heh, I admit, I didn't expect THAT, for some reason." he then admitted, shaking his head a little and chuckling.

"But seriously. Head honcho, eh? That's pretty neat." he told her.

"NOW I get why it was funny." he said.

Evan looked at her briefly, before nodding.

"Absolutely." he said.

"He and I were just going to get some take-out when I got back anyway, so this works out beautifully." he commented.

"And I DO want to try Helscape." he then admitted.

"Heard VERY good things about it."

"Ah, right." Evan said, taking his phone out and sending a text to her.

"My address." he told her.

"If you want, Blair's still at the place getting things ready and unpacking and stuff. I can message him and we can figure it out." he said.

"Neither of us use teleportation mana, so we'd be limited to the cars we have." he reasoned with a small sigh.

"But if you can think of a way to streamline this, I'm all ears."

"...huh, fancy that." Evan muttered.

"And... well, yeah, odds are Blair and I will want to shower up and get changed for meeting up at Helscape." he then reasoned, thinking about it.

"Also, I don't know how late you intend to be working... so I could just keep going for the couple more hours I had planned for my office, and then just head home afterwards. Call Blair soon so he can get ready before I get back, and then I can do so when I get home immediately." he went on.

"Then I can text you and you can come get us whenever you and Ilias are ready?" he suggested.

"Because I assume you'll be working far later than I."

No sooner had she asked her question, did they see Ilias returning.

And he did NOT look impressed. At all.

"Here." he said, handing her a mini crystal.

"Seems Wilkins decided to rearrange things in an order that only made sense to HIM." he told her.

"I swear, he's starting to be more trouble than he's worth for compounding smaller reasons." he went on, clearing a little more than annoyed, before shaking his head and taking a deep breath.

"But I found them. In the back corner of one of the cabinets in room ONE."