We retreated to our luxurious appartments shortly after we returned from the gardens. We got a few glances from the guards, knowing smiles and concealed grins. The rooms themselves were as palatial as the rest of the the building, a broad foyer flanked by servants quaters, then a parlor ahead of a pair of rooms the size of the master bedroom at the Hotel Imperial. The whole place was tiled with white marble veined with a pleasant green inclusion that matched the jade fitings of the furniture of antique wood. The parlor even had a small library, crammed with tomes on xenoarchaeology, sector history and a few works of Imperial philosophy. Emmaline wondered if the lack of any devotional work or hagiography, a normal inclusion in such a bibliography, was deliberate.

Urien and Bolskar  were sitting in the foyer when we arrived, heavy swords across their laps as they tossed tarot cards to the floor where a pile of coins, jewels and other odds and ends were gathered. They cried out in triumph and despair according to some rules Emmaline didn't follow. I went into my room and stripped off my expensive, somewhat grass stained clothing. I splashed myself with water and then pulled on a a shift of diaphonous slightly green silk. It was almost translucent and seemed to settle around me as though secured by some kind of static charge. I examined myself in the mirror and then headed for Hadrian's room, a slight grin on my lips.