He sits down on the floor. "I'm sorry."

Hug. Kind of tired trembly hug. "'m sorry I keep getting you hurt."

"It's - not even that really it's more that as a result of that he's worried about my decisionmaking. I'm - I'm really asking an awful lot, all the time."

Nod. "'m sorry. Should know not to keep coming here, by now. Hadn't thought this would dig us deeper in."

"Well it wouldn't have if not for -" He gestures vaguely. 

"Yeah. 

"My sister was killed at a feast that he threw. She deserved it, sort of, she'd tried to kill him after he raped her. And they killed some other people, just because it was - convenient, and would impress the crowd. Killed a seven-year-old. And - I thought how it would be so awful, if everyone in the world became someone who would cheer at killing someone who couldn't possibly have done anything wrong, just because she - happened to be associated with someone they didn't like.

" - I will pay for him, if you'd rather I did it - "

"We don't have to pay this time, love, we won him in a bet fair and square."

" - oh. Is that how that works. Okay."

She is still pretty trembly but, like, a slightly more relaxed variety of trembly.

"It's a stupid thing to do and you mostly shouldn't, especially against my brother, but you can bet anything that's yours."

"Okay. Yeah. No. That sounds complicated and terrifying. But I'm glad it worked out this time."

"We should go get him, I guess. And leave. Again."

"Yeah. Sorry for being - incredibly inconvenient again."

"I hope he's not a jerk. The not-emperor, I mean."

"Yeah. That would be annoying." Hug. "Thank you."

"You did it all. I just said I thought you would."

Nod. "'m just glad you're - the sort of person who will topple empires for me and also the sort of person who will - take it seriously, about me not wanting people to die if they don't have to, even if I don't have an ironclad reason why they need to stay alive. 's a very good combination."

"I figure there's never really a reason for that kind of thing."

"Well. I guess we should go get the not-emperor. And -  I'm not even really sure what we do, if the emperor's going to move before he dies sometimes, that sounds complicated."

"Yeah it does. But we could get the not-emperor out of here, at least, and try to see what this successor is up to."

"Yeah. Maybe he'll have ideas. If I had a decade of life and the chance to see my children grow up stolen from me - 

" - which I guess I arguably did, actually? But - maybe he'll be mad, too."

While everyone is dancing, a few people privately push the beautiful cage out of the main hall into a side room. The cage takes up most of the space in it. They leave the not-emperor there without explanation.

Well, he's pretty sure he's either dreaming, dead, or about to be, so he's not really terribly invested in any of this.

A little while later the door opens and two people come in. One of them starts fiddling with the mechanism on the cage. They're speaking Norwegian, at least.  "- going to need him to pay back the court, too. Ugh."

"Oh yeah, I guess we will." Sigh. "How are you doing?"

"Very confused."