“Then I’ll be in my quarters, the ones across the palace, you know, where the palace majordomo has exiled me.”

“We’ll get those changed.”

“No, don’t,” Naffa said. “You need your time away from everyone, including me.” She got up. “We’re still in the same house. I’m just sixteen wings away, is all.”

“I don’t think the palace has sixteen wings.”

“It has twenty-four major sections to it.”

“Well, you would know.”

“Yes, I would,” Naffa said. “And soon so will you.” She bowed. “Good night, Your Majesty.” She left, smiling. Cardenia watched her go, and then turned her attention to the door.

The door was ornate, like everything in the palace, and Cardenia realized that “ornate” was a design motif she was probably stuck with now; she couldn’t just burn everything down and start with clean lines and spaces, tempting as it might be. She was emperox but even they had their limits.

The door had no knob or access panel or anything else that suggested that it could be opened. Cardenia, sheepishly, put her hand on it to feel for a secret button.

The door slid open.

Keyed to my fingerprints? Cardenia wondered, and then walked through. The door slid closed behind her.

The room inside was large; as large as the bedroom in the imperial quarters, which made this single room larger than the apartments Cardenia grew up in. The room was bare, except for a single bench that jutted out from the wall to her left. Cardenia went and sat on it.

“I’m here,” she said, to no one in particular.

A figure of light appeared in the center of the room and walked toward her. Cardenia looked up as the figure approached; microprojectors in the ceiling were creating the image walking over to her now. Cardenia idly wondered at the physics behind it, but only for a second, because now the image was directly in front of her.

“Emperox Grayland II,” it said, and bowed.

“You know who I am,” Cardenia said, skipping the imperial “we.”

“Yes,” the image said. It had no identifiable signs of gender or age. “I am Jiyi. You are in the Memory Room. Please tell me how I may assist you.”

Cardenia knew why she was there but hesitated. “Does anyone other than the emperox come in here?”

“No,” Jiyi said.

“What if I invite someone?”

“Focused light and sound waves would make it unbearable for anyone other than the reigning emperox to come through the door.”

“Can’t I override that?”

“No.”

“I am the emperox.” And I am arguing with a machine, Cardenia thought but did not say.

“The injunction was made by the Prophet,” Jiyi said, “whose order is inviolable.”

This took Cardenia aback. “This room dates to the reign of the first emperox,” she said.

“Yes.”

“Xi’an didn’t exist then.”