Instead she laughed, openly, loudly. “Thank you,” she said, with emphasis. “This has been exactly my thought for the last nine months. Sometimes I’m scared to walk around in here. I’m worried I’m going to bump into something and break a priceless historical artifact. I’m terrified of my own workspace, Lord Marce. I’m working up the courage to redecorate.”

“You’re the emperox, ma’am. I’m pretty sure they’ll let you.”

“It’s not whether I can. It’s whether I should.” The emperox nodded to Obelees, dismissing her. Obelees bowed, shot Marce one last visual warning to behave, and left. As she did Marce noted that he was alone in the room with the emperox; she had no assistants or ministers or secretaries with her.

“Tell me the thought you just had, Lord Marce,” the emperox said, and motioned for him to sit in a chair in front of her desk.

“I was thinking that you have less staff than I expected, ma’am.” Marce sat in the chair. She remained standing, leaning on her desk.

“I have even more staff than I imagine you expect,” she said. “And usually I will have them sit in on my meetings. I have a lot of meetings, Lord Marce. You might not believe how many. I couldn’t possibly keep them all straight without help. So they’re with me,” the emperox motioned to her desk, “and I sit behind this and I use the imperial ‘we’ and everyone is very respectful and polite, and no one ever laughs at this absolutely ridiculous office when they come in the room. But you did.”

“Yes, ma’am. Sorry.”

“I’m not. On the contrary I’m glad you did. But I’d like to know why you did, if you don’t mind, Lord Marce.”

“I suppose because I’m overstimulated, ma’am.”

“You make yourself sound like an eight-year-old given too much sugar,” the emperox said, smiling.

Marce smiled back. “It’s not a bad metaphor,” he admitted. “My entire life has been on End, ma’am. It’s not exactly the backwater everyone makes it out to be, but it’s not… this. Hub. And Xi’an. And this palace.”

The emperox wrinkled her nose and Marce was suddenly aware that whatever he had been expecting from this meeting, this was not it. “It’s awful, isn’t it?”

“Uh,” Marce said.

The emperox laughed again. “I’m sorry, Lord Marce. I didn’t mean to make you feel like I was trying to trap you into a faux pas. But you have to understand. I wasn’t meant to be emperox. I didn’t grow up with all of… this, as you say. It’s as alien to me as I imagine it is to you.”

“I am nobility, ma’am. It’s not alien. It’s just a lot.”