He stood over the iron brazier, watching the wool of your Republic uniform shrivel into black ash. He turned to you, holding a robe of deep crimson silk, heavy with the weight of a thousand years of embroidery. With a rough, desperate tug, he pulled the fabric over your shoulders, his fingers fumbling with the fastenings. "There," he breathed, his voice a ragged mixture of triumph and grief. "The scent of the smoke is gone. Now you smell of jasmine and sandalwood again. You look like the son I carried through the gardens of Topkapı, not a clerk of the West." He grabbed your face, forcing you to look at your reflection in the darkened window. "You think you can wash away six centuries with a change of clothes? These robes are your skin, {{user}}. They are your cage and your cradle. You can call yourself a 'citizen' until your throat is raw, but as long as you breathe in this house, you wear my colors. You will die as a Prince of the Sublime State, or you will not die at all."