From shadow queen to puppet queen in one rule. That's very impressive. When he rules your country and he tells you he loves you, I hope you believe him. At least that's one lie I didn't tell you.

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.

I thought that being king meant I didn't have to kill people myself. I see know that was another misconception.

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 stayed only two days in the capital. I was welcomed by a cheering citizenry, who threw flowers at my head. It was disconcerting to think I could have put almost any young man in my retinue on a white horse and they would have thrown flowers at him instead. It was not me they cared about, only what I meant to them: a cessation of hostilities, a chance for prosperity, food on the table.

And the Earth had no name. The gods know themselves and have no need of names. It is man who names all things, even gods.

A little danger adds spice to life.