I want you to steal something." I smiled. "Do you want the king's seal? I can get it for you." "If I were you," said the magus, "I'd stop bragging about that." His voice grated. My smile grew. The gold ring with the engraved ruby had been in his safekeeping when I had stolen it away.

He looked gravely at the king. "It isn't an easy thing to give your loyalty to someone you don't know, especially when that person chooses to reveal nothing of himself. But no matter, Your Majesty. You are revealed at last." The king looked down at his nakedness and back at the captain. "Was that a joke?" he asked.

She's like a prisoner inside stone walls, and every day the walls get a little thicker, the doorways a little narrower.

Will there be poppy juice in it?" Phresine shook her head. "Good. My wife and I agreed that only my wine was to be poisoned.

...That he'd seen...two people, a young man and a woman, sitting on invisible furniture with their feet up, reading books and eating chocolates.

Today, she had yielded the sovereignty of her country to Eugenides, who had given up everything he had ever hoped for, to be her King.

I didn't think about being king,” he said, his voice hoarse. Eddis stared. “Your capacity to land yourself in a mess because you didn't think first, Eugenides, will never cease to amaze me. What do you mean you didn't think about being king? Is Attolia going to marry you and move into my library?