"I could eat."

He puts his hand on the book and creates two identical trays of food, different from the one he provided for breakfast.

"And that's my repertoire exhausted. Until I put more things in the book. Maybe I'll get a chance at Highpoint."

"Assuming you don't have to damage the food in the process I assume you could just walk through a restaurant."

"I have to really look at things, I wouldn't want to go into a restaurant and say 'can I stare intently at all your food and then leave' - I mean I can wave my imperial seal and they'll let me do that, but if I'm going to go that far I might as well actually order a meal which they can get reimbursed for."

"And then peer intently at other diners' plates. For variety."

Giggle.

"At least all my seemingly insane and frivolous behaviour is going to be spread out across the continent so probably very few people are going to see enough of it to write the capital asking 'did you hand out an imperial seal to a madman, and if so do I still get paid for his dinner'."

Giggle.

"Wandering the city and staying in a hotel and then leaving first thing in the morning is weird but not too weird to seem plausibly legitimate. Staring intently at all the food in a restaurant and then leaving without eating any, less so. I could hint that there was some kind of inspection going on but then they'd be really rattled for no good reason. Better to do something slightly less crazy and avoid worrying anyone."

"Could you wander through a grocery store?"

"Easier than a restaurant, probably, it's more the sort of place where people do that... but then I'd have a book full of, uh, groceries." Thoughtfully, "I suppose I could practice mixing and altering objects by trying to, uh, cook..."

"Ooh, you can do that?"

"Yeah! I haven't done much with it yet but I sort of - built the imperial palace, I put in all the pieces I could from memory on the way from First City to Dawnbrook and then when I had enough," he flips open the book and shows Cor a detailed drawing of the palace. "Couldn't do it all at once, not sure why, either I didn't have enough detail until I filled in the pieces first or I just can't hold the whole thing in my head the right way because it's too big. I have obviously not dropped a copy somewhere to test how good it is but the picture does the shimmery thing that means it's perfect and that's good enough for me."

"You should definitely write in a grocery store's contents then."

"At the next available opportunity!"

"How are you going to find me some messengers?"

"Find whoever on the palace staff is least crucial to handling the lack of Emperor, ask them if they'd mind going, if yes skip to next least busy person. There's some people I'd skip regardless. It seems like a plausibly hazardous task so I wouldn't ask somebody who'll be missed more than average, like they have kids or whatever, but would volunteer anyway out of duty, because that's not really fair, not unless everybody else who can be spared has been asked already and said no. Probably it'll end up being Evai Miato or Tifinn Ferrsi - no, Tifinn's girlfriend is expecting - Simm Pavu, maybe. Somebody who's responsible and reliable but not essential to any specific thing and where it won't be needlessly tragic if they get hurt or don't come back. Feel free to adjust my expectation of the risks."

"I met Tifinn, he showed me a picture of the Emperor's swoop so I could find you."

"Oh, cool. Did you talk much?"

"No, I was sort of in a hurry."

"Makes sense. Did you see Vira while you were there?"

"Possibly but not enough to learn the name."

"Red hair, busiest person around?"

"Yes."

"I'd ask how she was doing but I'm pretty sure I know the answer. The answer is 'busy'."

"So busy I did not feel prepared to interrupt immediately with 'hi, I fled a dying world and received magic powers in this one'!"