The Emperor sent for another dress for me, as promised, and it was delivered after all the food had been cleared from the table.
He left me in the room to get changed - a young woman was finally mopping up the blood from the corner of the room, but I suspected she was there to watch over me and that she was not as harmless as she seemed at a glance.
I avoided looking at her as I got dressed - the huge painting of Romulus and Remus with their she-wolf mother had an entirely different meaning to me now, and I was focused on that.
I wondered whether the Emperor would answer if I asked him more about who… what… he really was.
But that would have to wait - we had somewhere to be, and it was not going to be possible to talk about what he had just revealed to me while we were somewhere as
