The king’s arm tightened across his shoulder, and Costis broke free of his thoughts and started down the steps.

The king’s left foot landed awkwardly on the stair. He hissed.

Costis reached across to support him with his right hand, and his concern must have shown on his face.

“Hoping to get out of paying for those cups?” the king asked.

Costis snapped the hand back to his side, and the king laughed.

“Miniatures?”

“Full size,” said Costis obstinately.

“Was it to keep me from getting hurt? Because this”—he stopped for a breath—“this hurts.”

“I’m not sure. I think I prayed that you would be safe, Your Majesty.”

“That’s more ambiguous.” Eugenides considered. “I’ll have to die for you to be free of that promise.”

“I’ll get the cups, Your Majesty.”

The king shook his head. “You would spend your life paying for them.”

Costis would never pay off the debt. He’d prefer to march into hell, but that option wasn’t available. Odd that you could be so angry at someone and devoted to him at the same time. “I’ll get them,” Costis said simply.

“Costis, I am speechless.”

“Not noticeably, Your Majesty.” His entire life, which he had been hoping for the past two weeks might be restored, was gone again. He wished the king wouldn’t laugh at him.

They walked beside the reflecting pool. There was a great black hole in the water lilies where Teleus had fallen in. The water that had come with him when he’d climbed out of the fountain had splashed onto the edge work and was drying in the sun. One smashed lily trailed across the edge and into the water. Eugenides began again, hesitantly. “As it was undertaken on my behalf, we might ask the royal treasury to address the debt.”

Ten gold cups would hardly be noticed by the royal treasurer. Costis swallowed.

“Have I offended you? I didn’t mean to.”

Costis shook his head. “No, Your Majesty. Thank you, Your Majesty.”

“Which goddess should we dedicate them to?”

“Philia.”

She was an Attolian goddess. Not one of Eugenides’s gods. “I see. I suppose it’s good to curry favor where you can. You never know who might rescue you when you overreach.”

Costis believed in his gods, prayed to his gods, and sacrificed to his gods, but Eugenides was rumored not only to believe in his gods but also to speak to them and to hear them answer. The idea made Costis uncomfortable. The gods may have walked the earth in the time of the legends, but he preferred to think of them safely on their altars.

“Of course, that’s assuming I live,” said the king. “I might not.” He sighed. “I probably won’t live to see my bedchamber.” If these were death agonies, they were fake ones, Costis thought, and was sure of it when they reached the shallow stair at the far end of the reflecting pool. No one on the verge of death has the strength to pile one foul word on top of another like a man compiling a layered pastry of obscene language, from the bottom step all the way to the top.

He was more concerned when the king’s steps slowed as they approached the hunting court, and the halt was accompanied by no curses or complaints. Then he heard voices coming toward them and realized it wasn’t the pain, it was the anticipation of company that had stopped the king in his tracks.

The crowd came trampling across the flower beds, guards, nobles, and servants.

Eugenides made a noise. Costis bent his head to hear.

“Arf, arrf, bark, bark, bark, yap yap,” muttered the king.

They were quickly surrounded. Voices hammered at them from all directions, and there were faces pressing close on every side. Hands, whose owners Costis couldn’t see, tried to pull the king away. Costis pulled back, and the king yelled in outrage. Costis wondered if somewhere in the crowd was a man who would finish the work the assassins had begun.

“Hey,” he said loudly to a well-dressed middle-aged man who stood in front of him, but was turned toward the king. “Hey!” Costis said again, and the man turned. Costis put his hand out flat on the man’s chest and shoved. All of the muscles in his arm and in his back pushing like a ram, he drove the man backward until he bumped into the man behind him and both fell with arms windmilling. To avoid being dragged down, those who could stepped back, crowding the people behind them and leaving an open space in front of Costis.

On the edges of the crowd he could see guards. They were on the outskirts, like the palace servants, only spectators on the scene. It was not their place to approach the king without being directed to do so. Costis recognized most of them by sight, if not by name. He trusted them more than the yammering nobles around him.

“To the king!” he shouted, and the guards, after a startled look, to be sure it was they who were being addressed, came. They shoved their way through the crowd.

Costis said, “Don’t let anyone get close.”

Costis was half-carrying the king, whose steps had faltered. Costis could feel him tremble. There didn’t seem to be any point in following the curving path if the flowers were already trampled, so Costis made directly for the gateway into the hunting court.

Frantically, he bent his head to the king who appeared to be choking. Costis made a grumpy noise. The king was laughing.

“That was the Baron Anacritus you just dumped on his backside. Did you know?”

“No. I don’t care either. Where are your attendants?” Costis asked bitterly.

“I dismissed them while I went for my quiet walk. No doubt someone is telling them right now what fun they are missing. They will be here soon.”

“Not soon enough,” said Costis.

“Anxious to get rid of me?”

“Why can’t you act like a proper king?” Costis hissed in his ear.

They reached the hunting court at last.

“Oh gods, stairs,” Eugenides muttered in despair.

Costis sighed. The king had a long way and many stairs ahead of him. The royal apartments were on the far side of the palace. It would be best, probably, to find the nearest staircase and climb to the walks at the roofline. That would take him across to the inner palace, and from there he could go down and then up again to his rooms.

Thinking that surely someone else would escort the king that far, Costis was eyeing the first set of steps ahead of him. They led up from the hunting court to the portico entrance to the palace. Eugenides was looking at his feet. He didn’t see the queen arrive.

She came through the palace doorway ahead of her attendants, who joined her one by one, all showing signs of haste. The people on the stairs moved silently out of the queen’s way, and she looked down at the king, who still hadn’t looked up. Walking stiffly, she came silently down the stairs. The guards broke their cordon to admit her.

She reached for Eugenides, touched him on the face. He leapt backward like a startled deer, so explosively that Costis almost fell over trying to hold him. The queen snatched her hand back as if she had been burned.

There was a collective gasp from all around and then silence. Nothing stirred in the courtyard, not even the air, while the queen looked down at the king and the king looked down at his feet. Costis’s heart sank—for king and for queen, and for himself, who was uncomfortably loyal to two people at the same time.