“Here,” she said, handing me a sticky ball of honey and sesame seeds. “You’ll be too busy sucking it out of your teeth to cry.” Which was not untrue.

Very soon I was back in the quiet of the king’s apartments, my ragged breathing evening out. I thought Chloe would leave me there, but she had taken her instructions to heart and followed me every step of the way, past the guards at the door and through the attendants’ waiting room to the warren of rooms behind it. When I lay down, she put the handful of sweets beside my head, then flicked a bedsheet over me. She crouched there a moment, looking down at me.

“I have little brothers, though none as ugly as you,” she said, “and they only cry when they are ashamed of themselves. I wonder: what are you ashamed of, little monster?” She searched my face as I stared back at her. Then she stood, brushed her skirts straight, and went away, not as dim-witted as I’d thought.

I cried off and on for the rest of the day. When it was time to dress the king for dinner, I pretended to be asleep and the attendants stepped around my bedding without speaking to me.

Cenna rode back to the mountains with Moira’s Golden Pen. Eddis and Sounis sailed away to his capital city. I hid from the king.

If I was anywhere nearby, he could always find me, so I took to slipping off to the closets to hide behind the clothes. When he sent the attendants to hunt for me, they returned both resentful and empty-handed. The king, in turn, began to call me to his side just as I took my first step away, as if this was a game we were playing, as if he were winning. I could not look him in the eye without thinking of how I had betrayed him, while he thought I was trying to avoid the tedium of his meetings.

“If I have to sit through another interminable session with the western barons about road taxes, then you will, too,” he insisted.

The only way I could escape from him was to follow the queen when she and the king went their separate ways. The king was careful to call no one to account in front of Her Majesty and I knew he would not risk drawing her attention to my disobedience. That’s why I was present when matters came to a head with the Pent ambassador. Attolia was not scheduled to meet with Quedue. She was to meet with her architects that afternoon, to discuss the new aqueduct. I had trailed behind as she had left the royal apartment, purely to avoid remaining in it with the king. I was unexpectedly entertained.

The little town of Attolia first took root on the heights above the mouth of the Tustis River. The Tustis was brackish near the coast, and the town drew its water from the clean and clear Chelian Spring uphill from it. After the Invaders came, the city grew larger and more powerful. It was rebuilt closer to the shore, and it needed more water, so the first aqueduct was built to bring it from the upper part of the Tustis River, where it was fresher. As the city continued to grow, the second aqueduct was built during the Trading Empire and the third finished after the traders were gone.

By the time the first aqueduct was destroyed in an earthquake, the city’s growth had slowed. Although an ambitious project to build a much longer system had begun, the work on it had stopped and started over the years. Attolia was determined not only to see the aqueduct finished, but to erect a beautiful public fountain at its terminus, where the water would be delivered to her people. The engineers reviewed the history and explained their plans. They talked of drop and flow rate, and the precision of measurements and construction required to bring water hundreds of miles without ever allowing it to overflow its course, and I listened, rapt.

The council room was one of the largest in the old part of the palace, one level below the royal apartments, with a table in the center big enough to seat all the architects, the engineers, and the advisors associated with such a monumental project. There were doors at either end and a wall of windows overlooking the city. Opposite the windows was a row of alcoves, each with its own potted lemon tree. I was behind one of them. The queen did not look upon me with the same indulgence as the king, and it was always better to be out of her line of sight.

The lemon trees are long gone now, replaced with pedestals holding the busts of famous admirals. The beautiful landscapes that used to cover the walls have been painted over with pictures of the naval battle at Hemsha—a shame, as the work was not well done and war should not be made beautiful to look at.

Once the talk of the aqueduct moved from engineering to money, how much might be raised and from whom, I dozed off, waking only when chairs scraped across the floor as people rose from the table and bowed to the queen. I stretched and rubbed my leg while waiting for everyone to leave. They were very likely to forget me, and then I would be free to go to the garden. To my disappointment, Phresine said, “Your Majesty, the Pent ambassador requests a private audience.”

I made a face. Sitting on the stone floor had left me cold and stiff. I did not want to listen to the Pent, who might drone on until dinnertime.

Complaints had been made to the queen and to the king about Quedue, about bills he’d run up with the palace tradesmen, the unwanted attention he paid to the women of the court, his insults to minor patronoi and his rudeness to the servants. The kitchens hated him, as he complained about the food and demanded dishes be made to order at all hours. No one, not even his fellow ambassadors, liked him, but there was little that could be done. He was the ambassador of one of the most important countries on the Continent. Only the Braelings were more powerful.

Quedue’s request for an audience was out of the ordinary, and almost any other ambassador would have been turned away. Fordad, the Brael ambassador, would have been welcome, but Fordad would never have asked. He was meticulous in adhering to the rules of protocol—unlike the Pent, who’d made it clear he felt those rules were for lesser men from less powerful countries.

The queen allowed the ambassador to be admitted, so I shifted, trying to find a more comfortable position, and watched balefully as the Pent minced into the room tick-tacking on his high-heeled shoes. Lamion said he wore them in order to seem taller than the king.

“My dear Irene,” said Quedue, waving at the attendants and the guards. “This is hardly private.” The queen had not given him permission to use her name, nor to sit, which he did. “I had hoped to meet you without your shepherdesses, who guard so assiduously their one precious sheep.”

“Do queens have privacy where you come from, ambassador? We do not have it here, I assure you.” Attolia rose and moved away from him. The council room had been a dining room once, back when guests reclined as they ate. That had not been the style at court for years, but the couches from those days still lined the walls and the queen stopped next to one. Chloe leapt forward to plump the pillows and Attolia settled onto her left side, her elbow on a curving rest and her hand under her chin, her expression remote. Chloe adjusted Attolia’s dress, smoothing the fabric and tucking it around her legs before stepping back, the picture of deference.

Quedue immediately left his chair and crossed the room as well. Attolia had deliberately left no room for him on the couch, so he dropped and sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the queen. Phresine’s eyes widened. The queen’s expression remained unchanged.

“You can depend upon me,” the Pent said. I didn’t know what he meant.

Attolia also seemed puzzled. “For what, ambassador? Is there a new matter we need to discuss?”