"I have a very good memory."

"Well, fair enough. What's your name?"

"Mirelótë Ambela."

"That's pretty."

"Thank you."

He smiles, and walks away before people can be annoyed that he interrupted the singing.

She sings. She waits to see if he will come back.

Not that week.

She takes walks and reads books and thinks and listens.

The Emperor lives his life. His life involves naps, the rape and torture of helpless captives, and being out of the house a lot. It does not seem to involve any meaningful interaction with the actual running of the empire.

Hmm.

She looks up the laws on the books about slavery.

There are two ways to become a slave: voluntary sale (with the money usually going to a close friend or family member, although you can have it directed anywhere), or forced sale in case of debt (if you owe so much money that you couldn't possibly pay it all, your creditors get everything you have plus whatever you raise at auction). Attempting to forcibly enslave someone by any other means is very illegal. Once somebody is legally enslaved, though, there is approximately no legal protection of their rights or well-being except very incidentally - if you torture your slaves loudly at all hours you might incur a noise complaint; if you mistreat them grievously and then can't find anyone willing to buy what's left you can't legally collect insurance money for that any more than you could after deliberately burning down your own house.

(If a slave bears children, the children are born free but the mother's owner is responsible for their care. No one under the age of sixteen can be legally enslaved.)

So the explanation for the sold niece...

It's common for a family having serious financial trouble to arrange a voluntary sale or two before the debt gets dangerously large, and people speak in terms of 'the family sold their eldest daughter' even though that's not strictly legally accurate.

Mmhm. How much do slaves usually run?

Depends heavily on the quality of the slave and the context of the market; anywhere from 'a few weeks of her busking income' to 'a mansion in a good neighbourhood'.

Hmm.

Is there anything like a public log of debts?

Not as such, although there are public announcements and subsequently public records of slave sales. If she wants to get to debtors before that point she'll have a harder time of it.

Do they have the concept of buying debt?

They do have that concept!

Do they have somewhere she can advertise?

Word of mouth seems to be most of it, but there are magaziney newspaperish things that sometimes advertise stuff.

She goes looking for concert hall formal arrangements. And in case that doesn't pan out, jewelry stores.

Concert halls are super excited about her. Jewelry stores are pretty excited too.

The jewelry's nonrenewable so it's a second choice but she'd love to make better money than busking permits.