“Th-Then—” The ambassador stuttered. “What should I call you, sir?”

“Sir will do nicely, I think.” Lucien smiled at him brightly.

The man practically went beet down to his boots. “B-But—but you are the ki—”

“Head of State,” Lucien interrupted him smoothly, a chuckle on his lips. “Though my people do still cling to tradition. Have you heard? They call me the ‘King Without a Crown.’ Silly, really. And so…theatrical.”

Lucien could swear he heard Malachite scoff a soft “you love it,” but the rest of the room was quiet, uneasy at the unheard of shift of etiquette. The constant knocking of hammers on the palace walls and the deafening hiss of white mercury machines was but a dull undercurrent of noise here in the negotiations room, the shouts of workers and the stomps of the metallic matronics doing heavy lifting ringing far louder along the half-finished marble halls.

Lucien stood and made his way to the window, his black robe sweeping out behind him. He touched one finger to the sill, the paint still fresh. He’d ordered that the palace be the last thing to be rebuilt—housing and infrastructure first. And to his joy, the city had blossomed in the three years since. Well…since the end.

He shook himself out, holding his wooden hand tightly to his side.

New Vetris had sprung up around the crater of the palace slowly, but also in a blink. Time worked strangely in that way—constant negotiations, drawing up papers and trade requests and refugee inventories, sleepless nights of city planning with Fione, with Yorl, with the People’s Council. It all blurred together, melded and stretched and compressed until he was standing at the window today, in the fresh sunlight of spring, watching the city hum below. The horizon still looked different with the Red Lady gone, with the temple’s spire much smaller. Sometimes he’d blink and expect it to be there, wished it to be there, if only because that meant she would be there, too.

Time, reversed enough to give them time.

He scoffed softly under his breath.

Of all the rebuilding and restructuring New Vetris had accomplished together, the People’s Council was his proudest achievement. It was comprised of sixteen representatives from every walk of life, elected entirely by the people. The disenfranchised nobles had snuck in their man, of course, but outnumbered fifteen to one, his entrenched opinions barely held much sway. Bribery had tried to happen, naturally, but Fione had made the very prescient suggestion Lucien strip said nobles of their land rights. And so that had begun in earnest. T’was only doable because the nobles’ landed armies had been wiped out in the War of Trees—otherwise, civil war would’ve surely descended.

Lucien smirked to himself. Fate had given him the perfect time to step in and change things.

So, too, had it taken every other happiness from him.