The Queen of Attolia (The Queen's Thief #2)

by Megan Whalen Turner

The queen’s eyes closed and opened slowly. It was Eugenides she wanted to shake until his teeth rattled.

“You would only come sneaking back through my palaces, leaving notes beside my breakfast dishes.

“Stop making an ass of yourself and swallow the lethium,” she told him.

Eugenides had a tongue that sometimes moved faster than his thoughts, and he responded with taunts of his own, usually more cutting, sometimes so effective that the cousins’ attentions were diverted to his victim and Eugenides escaped.

Eugenides and his father had fought, both of them exercising their grief in anger with each other, in front of the entire court.

His cousins had begun to lose cherished objects and find them again on the temple altar dedicated forever to the God of Thieves.

“My Queen,” he said quietly, opening his eyes. “My Thief,” she said sadly.

And anyway, you’re not a common thief. You are my Thief. You’re a member of the royal family. She attacked all of Eddis through you, and you know it.”

The stump of his arm was bound in a clean white bandage. The bandage was unnecessary; the wound was healed, but Eugenides didn’t want to look at it, and keeping it bandaged seemed the easiest solution.

“Does the queen still call him her Thief?”

“Your queen’s entire two-word answer: ‘War, then.’

Steal peace, Eugenides. Steal me some time.”

“I didn’t come to Sounis to blow up His Majesty’s warships. I told you someone else had to do that.” “What did you come for if not to murder my king?” “I came to steal his magus.”

“Go on—without derogatory comments about people of my profession, please.”

“In his life Eugenides has gone to great lengths to portray himself as a noncombatant, so people assume he is. He has to live with the fruits of his labors and sometimes finds them unsweet.

“Eugenides? In the megaron?” Sounis had been angry enough when his magus’s apprentice had come to tell him that the magus allowed Attolian spies to wander through his hallways. That Eugenides had been in the palace was chilling. “What the hell was he doing, then?” the king snarled. “Well, stealing your magus, sir.”

He left what he’d moved in a pile on the floor. It made the room seem more like his own.

Eddis wasn’t sure that Eugenides still dedicated offerings to his god. Certainly no one complained to her anymore of missing earrings or other baubles. Eddis had noticed her fibula pin reappearing on Eugenides’s sleeve, but that had disappeared before he left for Attolia the final time. Eddis had heard several people, out of the Thief’s hearing, lamenting the loss of his acerbic comments on the court but found that she missed his grin more. He still smiled from time to time, his smiles sweeter for their infrequency, but he no longer grinned.

I wouldn’t have started a war to avenge you, Gen, or even to rescue you. Still, I wonder, what opportunity for diplomacy did I miss, and did I overlook it because I was angry on your behalf?”

“I think,” Eugenides said quietly, “that I could eliminate the instability of the Attolian queen.”

he took her wine, as casually as he had taken her country, and choked on it and died.

The secretary shrugged, too wise to say that he sympathized with the barbarian queen as her choices grew fewer and her freedom slipped away.

“I love stupid plans,” said Eugenides.

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.

“If you object to marrying a man with one hand, you’ve only yourself to blame.”

No matter what he thought of himself, he was hardly more than a boy. A boy without one hand. She reached up to push the wet hair out of her face, wondering when she had sunk so low that she had begun torturing boys.

“Before you make a decision,” he said, “I want you to know that I love you.”

“Bastard,” Attolia said. “Not that I know,” Eugenides responded,

“I’m sure I wouldn’t be the first you drove to apoplexy,”

When he rules your country and he tells you he loves you, I hope you believe him.”

Attolia’s smile was crooked with mischief. “Her beloved, certainly. Not her lover, I think.”

Attolia explained. “He had to be forcibly dissuaded from strangling his son.” “So have we all from time to time,” Eddis said seriously.

“I had thought you were fond of him.” “So did he,” said Attolia dryly.

He didn’t want to talk to Pol. Pol would want him to go somewhere on the back of a horse.

“Your capacity to land yourself in a mess because you didn’t think first, Eugenides, will never cease to amaze me.

“How can you understand?” Attolia asked as she turned to face Eugenides’s queen. “He hasn’t lied to you.” Eddis looked at her, surprise showing in her face. “Of course he has,” she said. “He lies to you?” Attolia asked. “Constantly,” said Eddis. “He lies to himself. If Eugenides talked in his sleep, he’d lie then, too.”

Looking at his arm, Attolia said, “I cut off your hand.” “Yes.” “I have been living with your grief and your rage and your pain ever since.

“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.