Finally I went and found my hat and skewered it on my head with a four-inch hat pin. I wore the hat because I knew my mother never visited without one. The pin I thought would be a comfort in case of emergency.

She was the stone-faced queen, then and ever after. She had needed the mask to rule, and she had been glad to have it. She wondered if Eugenides was glad of his.

He should have said something, why hadn't he? Costis wondered. In fact, the king had. He had complained at every step all the way across the palace, and they'd ignored it. If he'd been stoic and denied the pain, the entire palace would have been in a panic already, Eddisian soldiers on the move. He'd meant to deceive them, and he'd succeeded. It made Costis wonder for the first time just how much the stoic man really wants to hide when he unsuccessfully pretends not to be in pain.

I was not so comfortable with my new authority that I could say 'We eat the chicken now!' but the magus had seen that I was considering it.

Costis bowed stiffly. “I am here to make sure that you stay in bed, Your Majesty, because if this offends you and you order me summarily executed, it is no loss. Politically speaking.

Staring at the wall opposite him he presented the queen with a view of his ear and awaited her orders.

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