Jack has been to the audience hall once before when the Emperor was absent and Evandau took petitioners in her place, so he spares the stunning surroundings only a brief glance as though to affirm they haven't changed in tandem with the decline of the city outside the Palace before his gaze returns to the sword-bearing woman at the far end of the long room. He doesn't mind the walk across the inlay floor, coming to stop a dozen or so feet away with a respectful pause. It had been a long and restless night inside the Stark Building freezer, wanting to make sure he wasn't caught mid-melt by the time he got to see her (that he was allowed had registered with a certain level of surprise) though he suspected he looked more outwardly hale than belied the anxiousness gnawing inside of him.

"Your Majesty."

He remembers the rebuke (ma'am is unacceptable) but strives also to remember his and Raylan's conversation after that day in his suite, to put the man's words foremost in his thoughts moreso than the Emperor's sharp threat when Jack had spoken his mind. ( "I didn't think she was that kind of person, from everything I'd heard. I'm still not sure I do -- how stupid is that?" ... "She ain't. She told me she wouldn't have done it, for what that's worth." )