Is that what the wine is for? To help you think?" "Oh, the wine. The wine, Costis, is to help hide the truth. It doesn't work. It never has, but I try it every once in a while just in case something in the nature of the wine might have changed.

There are a lot of things a person with two hands couldn't steal," Eddis said. "So?" "If it's impossible to steal them with two hands, it's no more impossible to steal them with one. Steal peace, Eugenides. Steal me some time.

He lies to himself. If Eugenides talked in his sleep, he'd lie then, too.

She thought of the hardness and the coldness she had cultivated over those years and wondered if they were the mask she wore or if the mask had become her self. If the longing inside her for kindness, for warmth, for compassion, was the last seed of hope for her, she didn't know how to nurture it or if it could live.

Because you do not believe?" "Oh, no," said Attolia bitterly. "Because I believe and do not choose to worship.

As soon as the guards where gone, I lay down on my stone bench and dumped the king and his threats out of my head without ceremony. They were too unpleasant to worry over anyway.

I am not sure I trust you." "You can trust me with your life, My King." "But not with my wine, obviously. Give it back.