“All people are to get off the streets and go to storm bunkers, and parshmen are to be imprisoned or exiled into the storm. He wants the alleys of Yeddaw and slot cities evacuated, and orders government officials to report to their assigned bunkers to do head counts, draft reports, and mediate confusion or evacuation disputes. Find a draft of these orders posted at each muster station, with copies being distributed now.”

The scribes in the room looked up from their work, then immediately began packing away books and ledgers.

“Wait!” Lift said as the runner moved on. “What are you doing?”

“You’ve just gotten overruled, little one,” Ghenna said. “Your research will have to be put on hold.”

“How long!”

“Until the prince decides to step down our state of emergency,” she said, quickly gathering the spanreeds from her shelf and packing them in a padded case.

“But, the emperor!” Lift said, grabbing a note from Gawx and wagging it. “He said to help me!”

“We’ll gladly help you to a storm bunker,” the guard captain said.

“I need help with this problem! He ordered you to obey!”

“We, of course, listen to the emperor,” Ghenna said. “We will listen very well.”

But not necessarily obey. The viziers had explained this. Azir might claim to be an empire, and most of the other countries in the region played along. Just like you might play along with the kid who says he’s team captain during a game of rings. As soon as his demands grew too extravagant though, he might find himself talking to an empty alleyway.

The scribes were remarkably efficient. It wasn’t too long before they’d ushered Lift into the hallway, burdened her with a handful of reports she couldn’t read, then split to run to their various duties. They left her with one junior sub-scribe who couldn’t be much older than Lift; her job was to show Lift to a storm bunker.

Lift ditched the girl at the first junction she could, scuttling down a side path as the girl explained the emergency to a bleary-eyed old scholar in a brown shiqua. Lift stripped off her nice Azish clothing and dumped it in a corner, leaving her in trousers, shirt, and unbuttoned overshirt. From there she set off into a less-populated section of the building. In the large corridors, scribes gathered and shouted at one another. She wouldn’t have expected such a ruckus from a bunch of dried-up old men and women with ink for blood.