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.

Would you have your hand back, Eugenides? And lose Attolia? And see Attolia lost to the Mede?' Eugenides's eyes were open. In front of his face the floor was littered with tiny bits of glass that glittered in the candlelight. 'You have your answer, Little Thief.

I have a whole guard room full of brawny veterans who'd enjoy a chance to drag two Eddisians out of here, particularly if you kicked a lot and they could kick you back.

"Who am I, that you should love me?" "You are My Queen," said Eugenides. She sat perfectly still, looking at him without moving as his words dropped like water into dry earth. "Do you believe me?" he asked. "Yes," she answered. "Do you love me?" "Yes." "I love you." And she believed him.

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.

I know that if you don't look for an alternative, Sophos, you certainly won't find one.

Where are my guards, Teleus?" He was still speaking softly. Three men dead and he wasn't even breathing hard, Costis noted.