Laing chewed on an olive while he considered her response. It did make sense that the Emperor would want to isolate himself. Powerful men often did — but everything was so new here, he hadn't dared to presume.

"Relatively. It hasn't been more than a handful of days."

Once upon a time, he wouldn't have thought twice about offering her a handshake, introducing himself. But things had been... shifted... in his social understanding of late. So the instinct faltered.