Eadmund regains consciousness, standing in a cool breeze under warm sun.

Edmund opens his eyes.

He looks at the regalia of the Traitor-King of Cold Comfort, and hears the words that the Emperor is saying, which sound very distant. He reaches out, grips the hilt of his

of the sword. He gives it an experimental swing. It's heavy - instead of the whispering swish he's used to, it carves the air like thick jelly.

He lets it go, and it clatters down. He listens for her. Jadis.

Nothing. He tries Maugrim. The raven. A handful of other courtiers, though he knows they won't answer.

"Thank you," he says. "I sincerely do mean that."

"You're welcome."

"I... will come back," he adds. "In a decade or two. To ask that you do what you promised. I'm alive, now, and that's better, but I lost a lot. ...also I can't walk the ways of Ninuan anymore, so I am possibly homeless."

"Lots of people are homeless these days. We're working on it. I can drop you off at the palace and they'll find you somewhere to be, or you can point at a map if you'd rather be somewhere else."

"Sounds good. If there's... wait, I'm just a prepubescent human right now, I definitely can't help with housing efforts. Unless you work out how to travel between worlds yourself, and need my advice on where to find endless forests or vast fruited plains or elementals who love building cities more than anything else. Then I guess I can help, and you should let me know."

"I'm decently good at building cities myself. But I appreciate the offer."

"You do build them very nicely."

Edmund looks at the regalia. "...I don't actually want to wear his clothes, not while he's gone. Could I get... whatever seems low-effort for you? Before you drop me off at the palace?"

"Sure, no problem." A second table-flower sprouts next to the first; when its blue-grey petals unfurl, there's a second outfit neatly folded inside, in a more understated local style.

"Thanks," Edmund says. He steps forward and gets dressed. "Ready when you are."

He's already spinning up a portal.

"Remember to eat food, and pee, and stuff," he advises awkwardly as he moves toward it. "Because you're alive now. And I don't mind if you tell people the truth about who you are and how you got here, but they might be weird about it. I guess try not to specifically tell people I can bring back the dead, but it'll just be really inconvenient if you do, it's not the kind of problem that people die over. Mostly."

"...oh God, I'm going to be able to eat food. And it'll hardly ever be poisoned. I won't tell anybody you brought me back, just that you fixed me."

"Sounds good to me."

He steps through the portal. On the other side is a corridor, prettier than a corridor has any right to be, with a vaulted ceiling and unnecessarily ornate stonework. But it's not the glitz of a place built to impress: someone made this hallway beautiful because they love beauty.

The Emperor leads him along the hall until a right turn and an open arch deposit them in a big office staffed by a couple of stressed-looking teenagers. "Hey," he says. "This kid needs somewhere to stay, can you take care of it?"

The one behind the desk rakes her hair back from her face with one hand and summons a tired smile; the one interrupted in the middle of pacing the floor turns on his heel to angle closer, though he seems reluctant to walk directly toward the Emperor. "Yeah—yeah, no problem," he says, giving Eadmund an appraising look. "What's your name?"

"...Ed," he decides.

Then he turns to Solekaran. "Are you going to put out more fires? And if so, can I hug you first?"

"Probably. And sure."

Hug. Solekaran is atrociously tall and Ed is fairly short even for his physical age, so he's mostly getting an armful of waist.

"Sorry for killing you," he says, somewhat muffled. "Thanks for fixing me anyway."

Hug. "It seemed like what the situation called for."

Both of the youthful yet harried administrative staff in the room look like they have So Many Questions but neither of them is moving to try to ask any. The Emperor opens a portal next to him and steps through it with a little wave.

Ed turns to the harried youths. "Right! Um. I know he said to find me a house but can I also request a job? Are there positions open in your institution? My resumé is... patchy... but I do have administrative experience, mostly military, and I think a good work ethic covers many sins. And I like your boss."

"... he's not our boss," says the girl at the desk. "I mean. Technically. Very technically. But if you can tolerate the risk of running into him that puts you ahead of most people who might work here. Do you, uh... so..."

"You look like you're twelve," the other fellow cuts in helpfully. "Are you meaningfully twelve, or is one of the weird things going on with you 'looks like he's twelve but is actually an ageless force of nature like someone else I could mention'?"

"Uh. I was an ageless... kind of the opposite of a force of nature but yeah, 'looked like' rather than 'was' twelve. But now I'm slightly more an actual twelve-year-old. I'm still much smarter and more experienced than a normal kid but I may have other twelve-year-old disadvantages, like not being able to reach high shelves."

He thinks about it. "Actually my strange and terrible powers did not really help me with shelves. I just didn't interact with them much."

"Sure. Well, it's not like we're in much position to turn down the help," says the girl at the desk. "The pay is pretty bad but the work sure keeps you busy. If you don't like being responsible for other people's lives, you should probably stay home."

"If you keep talking us up like that, everyone will want to join," says the other guy, rolling his eyes.

"I'd rather scare them off early than have them just stop showing up to work one day because they couldn't take it. —we should stop bickering and find Ed somewhere to live. Ed, south or east? South is closer to the docks and has a better view of the tree; east has prettier gardens and a better view of the sunrise. There is also an orphanage but I'm going to guess you'd rather have your own house."

"East," Ed says immediately. "...I've been responsible for other people's lives for a long time. Almost exclusively making them worse. It might be a nice change."

"East it is—Vosce, get me the—"

Vosce is already halfway across the room, pulling a thick ledger off a shelf and hauling it back to the desk so the girl can flip it open and page through it.

"Do you want to see your house before you decide which one, or should I just give you the first open one on the list?" she asks, already reaching for a pen. "They're all stunningly beautiful—Imperial work, of course, nobody else can put up a house even a tenth as fast."

"Um - only if it's not a bother, but I would like to see them. There are a lot of stunningly beautiful houses that I would still prefer not to live in."

What if all of the stunningly beautiful shelves were two meters off the ground. What then.

"Sure—Vosce, do you—" (Vosce starts nodding.) "—have time to—good, okay, Hyacinth Lane is free from number six onward, start him there, are you going yourself or—" (Vosce starts shaking his head.) "—great, remember to tell them where to find the keys." (Nodding again.)

"Come with me," says Vosce, striding for a door at the far end of the room, "I'll find you someone who's less busy than I am and can take you to the eastern edge to look at houses. And I'll remember to tell them where to find the keys."