They looked confused to see me striding up the street. I was supposed to be inside. “Tell one of our guards to go back to the boat and fetch Ragan. Quickly,” I told Jovis before turning back to the gate. Jovis swept past the guards at the gates and into the courtyard before they could react, though he cast me a questioning look. I might need Ragan’s help if what I suspected was true.

“Wailun is dead,” I said to one of the guards at the gate. “And it’s my fault. I need to speak to Chala. There are things I should explain.”

“Eminence,” the woman said, and then stopped, unsure if she should still be using the honorific. She considered, tried again. “Eminence, I’m not even sure where to put you. This is most unusual.”

“I understand,” I said, sensing her reluctance. She should put me in the dungeon if she truly suspected me of killing the governor, but I was also the Emperor and outranked the governor. “You can post your guards at my sitting room. Chala, Wailun’s son, will want to speak with me when he’s ready. There are things I should explain.”

The guard nodded and waved three of her subordinates over to escort me back to my rooms. When you spoke with authority, people tended to cede to it, especially under difficult circumstances. It had been one of the first lessons I remembered my father teaching me. I had to know my place, he’d said, otherwise others would decide my place for me.

I had only one option left here: the truth. And I had to hope I could persuade Chala that the woman he’d always known as his adoptive mother was, in fact, a construct. I took a seat in my waiting room, the guards hovering over me nervously, and rested a hand on Thrana’s head. Despite the tension in the room, she sank to the floor. “Tired,” she said. And then she was out, as cleanly as though someone had blown out a lantern. I wished I could be so restful.

No one offered to bring me food or tea.

Ragan arrived before Chala sent for me, and though the guards would not allow him to pass into my room, I spoke with him through the open door. He’d left his ossalen on the ship, for which I was grateful. The creature was too small yet to be of much use in this situation, and would raise too many questions. “I may need your help,” I said.

Jovis stood behind him, looking steadfastly at anything but me.

Ragan glanced around the room, the guards standing over me. “I seem to have missed quite a lot.”